When news broke recently that Tom Cruise was planning to shoot a movie in space, there were many who believed the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. But then NASA publicly confirmed it was going to assist Cruise in making the movie, and Elon Musk was also going to be involved. Now it's reported that the project has gone one step further, and found its director in the form of Doug Liman.

Doug Liman is no stranger to dishing out game-changing action movies. His earliest effort within the genre resulted in The Bourne Identity, arguably the most influential action movie of the past two decades, whose impact can be felt years later in films like Casino Royale and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The filmmaker created another game-changing actioner with Tom Cruise in the lead with Edge of Tomorrow, in addition to the action-comedy American Made. Clearly, Cruise and Liman enjoy working together and can rely on a solid bond to carry them through shooting their film in space. Liman has already finished the first draft of the movie's screenplay and will be producing the feature along with Cruise.

For now, there are few details known about the plot of the space-based Movie, but after hearing that Liman will be directing, fans will inevitably start speculations about whether the movie is going to be the hotly anticipated sequel to Edge of Tomorrow that Liman and Cruise have been teasing for years. It would make a certain amount of sense for the sequel to a movie about an alien invasion to feature scenes set in actual space.

For now, the upcoming film is being developed independently, and the cast and crew will have to undergo extensive training with NASA simply to survive their trip to space. There are those who speculate that the cost and danger posed by filming in space outstrip the box office returns, but Cruise has always been known for pushing the envelope in bringing authentic action sequences before audiences instead of relying on CGI and green screens.

At the moment, the actor is gearing up to resume filming for the two-parter Mission Impossible feature he is making with director Christopher McQuarrie. The movie and its sequel are said to be Cruise's last outing in the iconic action franchise and promise to kick things up several notches in terms of the stunts and set pieces.

Then there is also the sequel to Top Gun which has finished filming and plans to open in theaters soon. With the current lockdown, the movie's release has been delayed, since the producers are determined that audiences should experience the film on the big screen.

Watching Cruise and the rest of the actors in the movie who play air force pilots performing death-defying stunts at stratospheric heights should be a nice primer for when we eventually get to see Cruise fighting zombie-pirates in space, or whatever he has planned for his extraplanetary movie. This comes from Deadline.