You might have missed the exhilarating work Director Doug Liman, his stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt gave us in the summer of 2014 with "Edge of Tomorrow." Chances are you might have missed the film when it played in theatres that summer. The paltry $90 Million it made at the box-office was further proof that Tom Cruise just isn't the box office draw he used to be. However, his work in Liman's movie as Cage was a solid reminder of why he became a movie star in the first place, the charisma, and charm that won us over the first time around was very much present here.
You might have dismissed the film as a sci-fi “Groundhog Day” and you wouldn’t have been wrong. However, Liman's film was more than just a gimmick. It had an originality and spontaneity that most other blockbusters fail to capture. A playfulness that left you giddy with excitement. It also had a great, strong female lead performance in Emily Blunt’s war-torn hero Rita. Is it just me or is Blunt one of the most underrated actresses around today?
For a film that essentially dealt with Cruise's Colonel time-looping the same war zone memory over and over again, you might have expected the film to have a certain kind of over-stayed repetitiveness, but that never happened. In fact, the only quibble I had with the movie was about the last 10 or so minutes when the plot deviated away from the time-looping and into anti-climactic combat mode.
People eventually caught on as to how great it was when the film was released on home video, capturing a solid fan base and becoming a sci-fi classic in the process. So much so that a sequel is now in the works with Liman, Cruise and Blunt all returning. Liman has stated that the film would "revolutionize how people make sequels" and that the film would be titled "Live Die Repeat and Repeat." Cruise's buddy Christopher McQuarrie ("The Usual Suspects," and "Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation") would write the screenplay.
Speaking to Flickering Myth this week, Liman says the sequel wouldn't have been possible without the fan base that developed, pushing it forward:
“I was not going to make a sequel to Edge of Tomorrow, I’m not really interested in sequels, I’m interested in trying new things, new places. But we came up with an idea for a sequel that’s so shockingly revolutionary for how a sequel would get made, and it’s so fresh and it’s such a fun story. We only even started talking about a sequel because there was so much fan affection for the movie, that people started asking us about a sequel. There was so much love for the film. It used to be that people come up to me and talked to me about The Bourne Identity. But Edge of Tomorrow is the one that people constantly come up and talk to me about. There’s so much affection for the movie we at least owe looking at it to see if there’s an idea for a sequel and we came an idea that I can’t stop talking about.”
This is all a major turnaround from the summer of 2014 when the film was a dying a slow and painful death at the box-office and was headed towards not even making back the film's supposed $100+ Million budget. Liman clearly is in love with the premise he has for this sequel, or is it a prequel? It's always risky trying to have a continuation to a much-loved film, some sequels have left a sour taste in our mouths and lowered our affection for the original because of how bad they were. We trust Liman, a smart and capable action director, to bring it with this film, even if some movies are better left untouched.