Edge of Tomorrow sequel: Doug Liman still hasn’t cracked the third act

Director Doug Liman‘s time loop / alien invasion sci-fi adventure Edge of Tomorrow (watch it HERE) did not set the box office on fire – in fact, compared to another notable under-performer starring Tom Cruise, it made less money than 2017’s The Mummy, on a higher budget. But that hasn’t stopped talk of a sequel from popping up every now and then over the ten years since the film’s release. Liman, Cruise, and co-star Emily Blunt have all dropped positive quotes about the possibility of an Edge of Tomorrow follow-up over the years… but one reason why it hasn’t made it into production yet (other than the fact that Cruise is incredibly busy) is that Liman and his collaborators still haven’t been able to crack the script.

Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s manga All You Need Is Kill, the first Edge of Tomorrow was set in a near future in which an alien race has hit the Earth in an unrelenting assault, unbeatable by any military unit in the world. Lt. Col. Bill Cage (Cruise) is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously dropped into what amounts to a suicide mission. Killed within minutes, Cage now finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop — forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over, fighting and dying again… and again. But with each battle, Cage becomes able to engage the adversaries with increasing skill, alongside Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Blunt). And, as Cage and Rita take the fight to the aliens, each repeated encounter gets them one step closer to defeating the enemy.

Liman has said the sequel’s title may be Live Die Repeat and Repeat, a play on the first film’s tagline “Live Die Repeat” (which some felt should have been the movie’s title instead of its tagline). But before we get there, we need a completed script.

Speaking with Collider, Liman said, “Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise have never been more on top of their game than they are right now. I’d be crazy not to be trying to, you know, figure out how to make a sequel. So I am spending time trying to crack it. On the flip side, time travel’s really tough. Like really, really tough. All you have to do is develop a movie with time travel to come to the conclusion that humans will never travel through time because it’s hard to figure out a third act in a movie with time travel. So I know for a fact humans are never going to travel through time but I am trying to crack it.“

At the start of this year, Tom Cruise signed a deal to partner with Warner Bros., and studios chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy are reportedly hoping that an Edge of Tomorrow sequel will be one of the projects that comes out of their deal. So it might end up happening one of these days after all. We might be closer to Edge of Tomorrow 2 / Live Die Repeat and Repeat to becoming a reality than we ever have been before. If they can finish the script.

Are you hoping to see a sequel to Edge of Tomorrow? What would you like to see in a follow-up to that film? Let us know by leaving a comment below.