[Update: Well this is interesting. It appears that Deadline's report was mistaken, as Christopher McQuarrie has taken to Twitter to clarify that he's not directing Edge of Tomorrow 2 after all:
This makes a bit more sense, but regardless, I'm enthused to see this movie might actually happen now. Our original story follows below.]
Edge of Tomorrow 2 is one big step closer to becoming a reality. The Doug Liman-directed 2014 sci-fi film was a pleasantly surprising and all-around terrific burst of fresh air to the blockbuster genre, with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt bringing audiences a truly unique and thrilling time travel yarn with charm to spare. Given that this wasn’t a sequel or a superhero movie, it didn’t quite catch on like wildfire at the box office, but that didn’t stop critics from heralding the film’s quality day-in and day-out. It topped out at $370.5 million worldwide, which is fairly sizable, and last year Cruise started talking seriously about a sequel happening. Now, that sequel has writers and a director.
Per Deadline, Christopher McQuarrie is attached to direct Edge of Tomorrow 2 while Race scribes Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse have been tapped to pen the script. Shrapnel and Waterhouse recently did a rewrite of the assassin thriller The Gray Man, which McQuarrie is also set to direct with Charlize Theron in the lead role, so they have a rapport with the Edge 2 director.
But McQuarrie helming the sequel is a fascinating bit of news. Most figured that Liman would be back to direct given that the core creative team of Liman, McQuarrie, Cruise, and Blunt had been developing the idea for the follow-up. The first film has three credited screenwriters, but McQuarrie performed significant on-set rewrites throughout production, crafting and penning the ending while Liman and Co. were in the midst of shooting. So he’s well-versed in the Edge world and has more than proven his chops as a director with the fantastic Cruise vehicles Jack Reacher and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, not to mention his debut The Way of the Gun, which makes him a swell choice to take over for Liman.
It’s unclear why Liman isn’t back in the director’s chair, but it could have something to do with scheduling. He’s attached to helm Fox’s X-Men spinoff Gambit this December and recently signed on to direct the small-scale thriller The Wall this summer. But it’s not like McQuarrie’s schedule is wide and clear. He’s currently scripting Mission: Impossible 6, which he’s set to direct marking the first time the same filmmaker has helmed more than one of Cruise’s M:I movies. He’s also developing the aforementioned The Gray Man, but news of his heavy involvement in Edge of Tomorrow 2 will surely drive fan interest for the sequel even further.
When Cruise last teased the Edge sequel he said Blunt was game to return but the actresses wanted at least another year before diving back into the physically intense world of Edge of Tomorrow. That was last summer, so it’s conceivable that, should Shrapnel and Waterhouse’s script come out to everyone’s liking, McQuarrie could slide right into production on Edge of Tomorrow 2 after completing Mission: Impossible 6, which would mean filming could possibly get underway as early as the second half of 2017. I don’t want to get my hopes up just yet, but as a big fan of the first film, not to mention Cruise, Blunt, and McQuarrie, this is mighty exciting.
