After learning that singing shitless in Rock of Ages perhaps wasn’t the best way to prove that his box office clout had returned, Tom Cruise is headed back to sci-fi – the genre that gave him smash hits like War of the Worlds and Minority Report.
After finishing up filming on Oblivion for Universal, he will head over to Warner Bros. who have officially given the go-ahead to adapt graphic novel All You Need is Kill.
Deadline is reporting that the high-concept film will soon go into production with Cruise having already begun some preliminary work on the film last Friday in London. Emily Blunt is also attached to star, with Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) directing a script from Dante Harper (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters).
The Japanese sci-fi graphic novel All You Need is Kill is highly praised and hugely idolized among fans, so it should prove as excellent source material for a big-budget imagining (if handled with care, of course). If you’re not familiar with the story, you can read the plot synopsis below.
“There’s one thing worse than dying. It’s coming back to do it again and again… When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the Bitch of War. Is the Bitch the key to Keiji’s escape, or to his final death?”
These types of ambitious sci-fi epic have a mixed history on the big screen to say the least, but the prospect of a Starship Troopers–Groundhog Day hybrid is extremely tantalizing to fathom. A timeline for production (or release date) for All You Need is Kill have not yet been revealed but is unofficially being targeted for a debut next year.