Despite enduring a turbulent production and failing to deliver the box office numbers that were expected, Edge of Tomorrow is still one of the best and most severely underrated sci-fi movies of the last decade. A haul of $370 million is far from a disaster, but when the budget came in at a reported $178 million and Warner Bros. spent a further $100 million on the marketing campaign, the time-traveling action epic’s profit margins were razor thin.
It didn’t help matters that the studio couldn’t even settle on a title, with the pic flitting between Edge of Tomorrow, Live Die Repeat and the combined Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow depending on where and how it was being screened. The script went through multiple drafts, too, with star Tom Cruise recruiting his regular collaborator Christopher McQuarrie to steady the ship after shooting kicked off with rewrites happening on an almost daily basis.
Director Doug Liman also found himself under major pressure due to falling massively behind schedule, as the opening set piece took almost three months to complete when it was supposed to be finished in two weeks, and he constantly butted heads with the studio. Quite how Edge of Tomorrow turned out as great as it did remains a mystery, but Liman must have made up with the Warner Bros. hierarchy because he was brought back to helm the in-development sequel.
The project is still in early development, but in a recent interview, star Emily Blunt admitted that while she isn’t sure when the tentatively titled Live Die Repeat and Repeat will come together, the the idea behind the story is hugely promising.
“Yes, it’s really promising and really, really cool. I just don’t know when everything’s going to sort of align, you know what I mean? Between all of our schedules, it would just have to be the right time. But there is something in the works, for sure, that’s a great idea. A great idea.”
Edge of Tomorrow continues to win over new fans who might have missed it the first time around, and if the follow-up can maintain the quality of the original, then another superbly unique slice of blockbuster sci-fi could be on the cards whenever the project ends up getting the official go ahead.