That Tom Cruise/Alejandro G. Iñárritu film is really happening

Huge news for fans of crazy filmmaking techniques and even crazier live-action stunts. The fabled Tom Cruise and Alejandro G. Iñárritu teamup, which Warner Bros. announced back in February, is really moving forward. Variety reports that the still-untitled film is set to start shooting in the U.K. soon. No start date has been confirmed as of this writing, but the trade reports that production could begin “as early as next month.”

Tom Cruise has widely been hailed as the “savior of theatrical distribution” after his insistence on delaying Top Gun: Maverick‘s streaming release in the wake of the pandemic. Iñárritu is a back-to-back Best Director winner at the Oscars for Birdman (2015) and The Revenant (2016), who also won a special achievement award from the Academy in 2018 for his virtual reality short Flesh And Sand (Carne Y Arena in Spanish), which followed the journeys of several immigrants and refugees. Clearly these two will be able to make some type of magic together. 

They also have a truly all-star team of supporting actors behind them. Deadline reports that Sandra Hüller (Anatomy Of A Fall), John Goodman (The Conners), Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man), Jesse Plemons (Civil War), and Sophie Wilde (Talk To Me) have all boarded the project. As of late August, Riz Ahmed was also in talks to join the cast.

Not much else is known about the plot of the film but Deadline reports that it might “center on the most powerful man in the world, who embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.” (That logline hasn’t been confirmed by the studio yet, so things are definitely subject to change.) Cruise will also be producing as the first of a massive deal with Warner Bros. to create original films for the studio. Hopefully it works out for all parties involved because WBD’s big film this season is, uh, not doing too well.