Edge of Tomorrow 2 director Doug Liman teases a more character-driven story

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Edge of Tomorrow starred Tom Cruise as a man who was forced to fight invading aliens over and over again as the day kept restarting each time he died. Owing to its lackluster box-office performance, the film was seen as something of a disappointment when compared to Cruise's typical big-budget fare, but passionate fans have kept the hope for a sequel alive.

There have been rumblings of a Edge of Tomorrow sequel for quite some time, and director Doug Liman recently spoke with Collider to tease that if the sequel does happen, it might just skip the typical "bigger is better" sequel mentality and tell a smaller, more character-driven story.

I’ve always been interested in the idea of a sequel being more character-driven than the first film, because that’s not how things are normally done. That’s been my approach when developing the sequel and because Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt are such phenomenal actors. I get sometimes the sequel just has to have more firepower or more explosions but no visual effect is going to top what you’re going to get from a great scene performed by Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.

Liman added that the script is still being worked on, but said that whether or not the sequel gets made really comes down to Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt finding the time to make it happen. "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," Liman said. "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." Both Cruise and Blunt have previously expressed their desire to return for the sequel, but as they're both incredibly busy actors, it's hard to say for certain when production could move forward. Tom Cruise will next be seen in Top Gun: Maverick on July 2, 2021 and Mission: Impossible 7 on November 19, 2021, while Emily Blunt has A Quiet Place: Part II on April 23, 2021 and Jungle Cruise on July 30, 2021. That said, we'll likely see one or more of these release dates shuffled around owing to the pandemic.