Doug Liman Says ‘Edge of Tomorow’ Sequel Couldn’t Have Happened Without Fans

You might have missed the exhilarating work director Doug Liman, and his stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, gave us in the summer of 2014 with “Edge of Tomorrow.” The film only earned $90 million at the box-office, and while you might have dismissed the film as a sci-fi “Groundhog Day,” you weren’t exactly wrong. However, Liman’s film was more than just a gimmick. It had an originality and spontaneity that most other blockbusters fail to achieve. A playfulness that left you giddy with excitement.

For a film that essentially dealt with Cruise’s Colonel time-looping the same war zone memory over and over again, you might have expected the film to have a certain kind of over-stayed repetitiveness, but that never happened. In fact, the only quibble I had with the movie was about the last ten or so minutes when the plot deviated away from the time-looping and into anti-climactic combat mode.

People eventually caught on as to how great the film was when it hit home video, capturing a solid fan base and becoming a sci-fi classic in the process. So much so that a sequel is now in the works with Liman, Cruise and Blunt all returning. Liman has stated that the film would “revolutionize how people make sequels” and that the film would be titled “Live Die Repeat and Repeat.” Cruise’s buddy Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects,” “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation“) is writing the screenplay.

Speaking to Flickering Myth this week, Liman says the sequel wouldn’t have been possible without the fan base that developed, pushing it forward:

“…we came up with an idea for a sequel that’s so shockingly revolutionary for how a sequel would get made, and it’s so fresh and it’s such a fun story. We only even started talking about a sequel because there was so much fan affection for the movie, that people started asking us about a sequel. There was so much love for the film. It used to be that people come up to me and talked to me about ‘The Bourne Identity.’ But ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ is the one that people constantly come up and talk to me about. There’s so much affection for the movie we at least owe looking at it to see if there’s an idea for a sequel and we came an idea that I can’t stop talking about,” he said.

This is all a major turnaround from the summer of 2014 when the film was dying a slow and painful death at the box-office and looked like it wouldn’t make back its $178 million budget. Liman clearly is in love with the premise he has for this sequel. Or is it a prequel? It’s always risky trying to have a continuation to a much-loved film, but we trust Liman, a smart and capable action director, to bring it with this film, even if some movies are better left untouched.