The Edge of Tomorrow sequel's fate lies in stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt's hands.

"It's one of these things where if Tom, Emily and I were to say, 'We're ready to pull the trigger on this script,' it's Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, the film gets made," director Doug Liman told Collider. "That's pretty much how Hollywood works. The stars are the gatekeepers. If you can get Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt to commit to the movie, it's going to happen."

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Directed by Liman, 2014's Edge of Tomorrow was a modest box office success that earned critical acclaim for its time loop plot and sci-fi action sequences, along with Cruise and Blunt's performances. A sequel has been in some stage of development since 2015, with Edge of Tomorrow co-writers Christopher McQuarrie and Jez Butterworth among the scribes who've worked on the script. Liman feels the Edge of Tomorrow 2 screenplay isn't ready yet, but said that isn't "really an impediment," based on how he made the first movie.

“For [Live Die Repeat, aka. Edge of Tomorrow], the script wasn’t there when we started shooting," Liman said. "Tom and I often laugh about this, that during prep on that movie we’d say to ourselves, 'There's nothing like a looming start date for the shoot to put pressure down to get the script right.' And then while we were shooting the movie, we'd say to ourselves, 'There's nothing like a looming wrap date to really put pressure down to getting the script done.' Then when while we're editing the movie, we're like, 'There's nothing like a looming release date to force you to get the script right.'"

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According to Liman, directing a big-budget genre movie like Edge of Tomorrow is vey different than making a smaller project, like his HBO Max film Locked Down. "It’s not Locked Down where it’s one writer’s singular vision and you want to shoot that exact story with that intimacy," Liman explained. "The canvas is so much bigger than any one person.”

Liman and Cruise are currently preparing to shoot an as-yet-untitled $200 million movie in outer space with Space X's Elon Musk and NASA. Cruise is also filming the next two Mission: Impossible sequels in rapid succession, which will likely prevent him from being able to commit to the Edge of Tomorrow sequel in the foreseeable future.

Source: Collider