The story outside the central story of the science fiction film Edge of Tomorrow – which starred Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt – may be best summed up as “slowly but surely.” The inventive 2014 film – which played like a deadly serious, action-packed tilt of the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day – took a while to fully catch on with moviegoers and looks to be officially getting the sequel treatment. Of which, a few things have been learned.
In an interview with Collider, where director Doug Liman was discussing his latest feature – The Wall – the conversation took a turn to Edge of Tomorrow, with Liman spilling:
We have an amazing story! It’s incredible! Way better than the first film, and I obviously loved the first film. It will be called Live Die Repeat And Repeat. Tom [Cruise] is excited about it, and Emily Blunt is excited about it. The big question is just when we’ll do it. But it’s not an if, it’s a when.
The project has made small waves previously, particularly when it was announced that Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse (Race) had been brought aboard to pen a screenplay for the project. Yet, the seeming confirmation that both Cruise and Blunt will return for a second installment is particularly worthy of note, perhaps mostly for Blunt’s involvement, consider her “Full Metal Bitch” role of Rita was highly regarded among both critics and audiences. Cruise, too, was commended for his about-faced take role as the more subservient male lead; Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth penned the screenplay for the original film, based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel All You Need is Kill.
Not worthy, on terms of the title is that Warner Bros. actually (sort of, in a cagey sort of way) changed the title to Edge of Tomorrow to Live Die Repeat. At least, now there seems to be some agreement.
While Edge of Tomorrow (or Live Die Repeat) earned a respectable $370 million at the worldwide box office in the summer of 2014, success (and particularly a sequel) seemed somewhat out of reach based on a sluggish box office start to the film. It took a little while for word of mouth to build on the clever sci-fi outing before moviegoers – and a surging cult – started to coalesce. With its central cast seemingly on board for round two, perhaps new developments will start to evolve quickly. Check out our past review and discussion for Edge of Tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
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