Tom Cruise's long-awaited space project looks like it might be stuck on the launchpad as the action movie star attempts to stay out of the current state of American politics, an insider has revealed.
The Mission Impossible actor has been trying to get the project off the ground since 2020, when it emerged that he was working with his director from Edge of Tomorrow, Doug Liman, on the first-ever film shot in outer space.
However, the political climate back on our pale blue dot has effectively led to the project being shelved, a source had told Page Six.
The 63-year-old leading man has carefully avoided politics during his career, out of fear of alienating and dividing his audience, but his ambitious plans to shoot in space would require the assistance of both SpaceX and NASA.
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This would mean Cruise would have to get President Trump's approval in order to make the movie.
An insider told the publication: “From what I understand, they would need NASA coordination to do the movie, and supposedly Tom Cruise did not want to ask Donald Trump for a favor.
"You’d need permission from the federal government.”
The aborted project had received the nominal support of both NASA and Elon Musk-controlled SpaceX back in 2020, when Joe Biden was in office, raising fan hopes that they would get to see Cruise shoot the first space blockbuster.
Jim Bridenstein, then the head of NASA, shared his excitement at the project, which he said could have been filmed on the International Space Station.
He added in a since-deleted X post: "We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make NASA’s ambitious plans a reality."
Similarly, four years before he became a key Trump ally, Elon Musk had said the ambitious project 'should be a lot of fun,' indicating his support.
However, the industry insider said in the current climate that 'Tom didn’t want to ask for political reasons'.
This is somewhat backed up by the action star's previous moves, with Cruise reportedly turning down an honor from the president earlier this year at the Kennedy Center, citing 'scheduling conflicts.'
The complicated world-first shoot would have involved getting Cruise into orbit, 250 miles above the Earth's surface.
Director Liman had shared that he was looking forward to making the film just three months ago, telling Deadline: "I’m more excited about going to space, but our goal is to make something great."
Liman, who also worked on The Bourne Identity, said the project was about expanding into a new frontier for filmmaking.
He added: "I want to make a film that people watch in a hundred years when maybe there’s hundreds of movies shot in outer space and there’s nothing special about it being in outer space."
Topics: Tom Cruise, NASA, Space X, Donald Trump, Politics
William Morgan