Tom Cruise Could Become First Civilian To Do Spacewalk Outside Space Station For New Movie

Tom Cruise is going to space for his next movie.

Cruise, 60, will "hopefully" become "the first civilian to do a spacewalk" outside of the International Space Station (ISS) if plans to shoot the Hollywood superstar's new action movie with director Doug Liman in space pushes through, Donna Langley, the head of Universal Pictures, said in an interview with BBC.

"Tom Cruise is taking us to space. He's taking the world to space. That's the plan," Langley told the BBC. "We have a great project in development with Tom, that does contemplate him doing just that. Taking a rocket up to the space station and shooting and hopefully being the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station."

She clarified that while the movie will send Cruise to space, the film mostly takes place on Earth. However, his character "needs to go up to space to save the day," the Universal chairwoman explained.

Langley teased that Cruise's character is "a down-on-his-luck guy who finds himself in the position of being the only person who could save Earth."

She did not provide any other detail about the project. However, Variety reported that Cruise and Liman will work with both NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX company. No Hollywood studio has ever filmed a narrative feature film in space before, the outlet noted.

"When a producer proposes something crazy to you, like, let's try to shoot a movie in outer space, and NASA and SpaceX sign on, and Tom Cruise signs on... you're just a little bit more receptive," Liman told Thrillist last year about joining the project.

Unnamed sources previously told Variety that the project has a budget of $200 million.

Cruise is expected to earn between $30 million and $60 million, the insiders added. The amount covers his services as a producer and star and also comprises significant first-dollar gross participation over a windfall upfront.

The film has inherent marketing value as the world is expected to watch Cruise fly to space, and the stakes are high from a filmmaking standpoint, according to the outlet.

An unnamed person familiar with the project told the publication, "You can't be sure what you're going to get up there, and you have one shot to do it."

This isn't the first collaboration between Cruise and Liman. They previously worked together on two huge projects: the 2014 movie "Edge of Tomorrow" and the 2017 action-crime movie "American Made."