Jeremy Piven added to ‘Edge of Tomorrow’

Typically you just don’t hear many casting decisions to arise after the film in question has completed principle photography.  Not the case with Tom Cruise’s latest – the science fiction film Edge of Tomorrow.  Emmy winner Jeremy Piven (Entourage) has joined the cast as cameras are set to roll again for Doug Liman’s action film about a soldier (Cruise) caught in a time loop whilst at war with aliens.  Piven, next to be seen in Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For, is reportedly slated to play Col. Walter Marx; however, there are no details at the time concerning his relation to the narrative. 

While reshoots and retooling are a sometimes norm in big-budgeted mainstream filmmaking, there’s sometimes a backlash or lack of confidence that stories like this can perpetuate.  Liman and a spokesman at Warner Bros. appear to already be taking the defensive, alleging the film was always expected to come back and shoot this extra stuff.  However, similar stories on a much more dire situation were made of this past summers World War Z, which went back and re-shot the entire third act of the film, yet sailed away as a success story at the end of the day. Even Liman’s own The Bourne Identity (2002) overcame initial reports of ruin and major delays to become a major hit and launcher of a mighty franchise.

Edge of Tomorrow was (and still is being) directed by Liman (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity), and co-stars Emily Blunt (Looper), Bill Paxton (Apollo 13) and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies). It was written by Joby Harold, Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher and Oscar-winner for writing The Usual Suspects), and the Transformers team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, based on the book All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakuraka.

The film already made a minor bit of a news item when the title was changed from the seemingly more evocative All You Need Is Kill, a nugget confirmed at Comic Con last month which prompted Tom Cruise’s very first appearance at the convention.  Edge of Tomorrow is set for release on June 6, 2014.