There had been some rumblings that Tom Cruise (“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning”) and Ana de Armas (“Ballerina”) were gearing up for a collaboration, and when there is smoke, there is fire. As a new report from Deadline claims that the project won’t be the untitled Alejandro G. Iñárritu film at Warner Bros., but could be “Deeper” as the actress is being eyed for a leading role.
In that pic, we will see the action star reunite with “Edge of Tomorrow” and “American Made” director Doug Liman. Also, mentioned in their report reveals “Deeper” is going to be a “supernatural undersea” movie, giving us some brief but tantalizing info, including that they are “hearing” Christopher McQuarrie is potentially working on the script.
That elevator pitch for “Deeper” from the outlet:
“Deeper” follows an astronaut who encounters a terrifying force while on a deep dive into a never-before-explored trench.
They also claim the budget for the blockbuster could be in the realm of $200 million, which isn’t all that shocking given how expensive it can be to shoot sequences underwater. One of the big stunts and selling points for “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” has Cruise spending a good chunk of time holding his breath for risky scenes.
Obviously, there is now a bidding war underway for “Deeper” with Sony Pictures and Amazon MGM Studios (the project started out at MGM back in 2016) being named, but the latter being the frontrunner.
Being a longtime creative partner of Cruise, it isn’t at all that surprising that McQuarrie would be working on another film that he’s not directing. McQuarrie started out as a Hollywood script doctor during his screenwriting days and has been brought in on various such projects over the years to help polish drafts, most recently with “Top Gun: Maverick.”
This has been an ambitious project kicking around for nearly a decade. “Deeper” originally started out as a spec script from Max Landis, has undergone multiple incarnations with actors such as Bradley Cooper and Idris Elba previously involved, but ultimately exited at different points. Directors Kornél Mundruczó and Baltasar Kormákur were once attached to those old versions.
I’m sure many will first think of projects like James Cameron‘s “The Abyss” (one of his few box office disappointments), the “Aliens” knockoff “Leviathan,” or the Michael Crichton adaptation “Sphere” from the late 1990s helmed by Barry Levinson, all featuring genre-bending elements.
