How one movie became Tom Cruise’s ultimate white whale: “It’s still a dream and a plan”
Having spent almost 40 uninterrupted years as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Tom Cruise now exists on a level above the A-list. There are actors, there are movie stars, and then there’s whatever he’s evolved into, something that increasingly defies categorisation.
Plenty of actors do their own stunts, or at least some of them, but Cruise remains in a class of his own. Whether he’s riding motorcycles off cliffs and parachuting to safety, scaling the world’s tallest building, or repeatedly setting things on fire to claim a world record, his death-defying antics are capable of making even the most seasoned professionals quake in their boots.
He’s also one of cinema’s foremost champions, who loves movies more than anyone else in the business. If he likes a film, he’ll make a point of letting everyone know, and he won’t go to a theatre without a trusty bucket of popcorn in hand, which he also eats like an absolute maniac for some reason.
Cruise is one of the few high-profile actors who refuses to answer any questions about his personal life, which has positioned him somewhere between a cypher and self-parody. Everything about him revolves entirely around the moving image, and there are many valid and entirely justifiable reasons why everyone keeps calling him the last great star.
All that, combined with his multi-billion dollar filmography and status as one of the most consistently bankable names of the modern era, would indicate that if Cruise wants to make a movie, there isn’t a damn thing that can stop him from doing so. However, if that were the case, he would have been in outer space by now.
Manoeuvring between biplanes in midair? No problem. Holding his breath for six minutes? Perfectly fine. Clinging onto the side of a jet during takeoff? Sure, why not. Almost getting decapitated by a samurai sword? Perfectly OK. He’s done all of that and much more, but becoming the first civilian to perform a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station remains agonisingly out of reach.
Cruise’s plans to shoot a blockbuster beyond the stars alongside frequent collaborator Doug Liman were first announced in 2020, and that’s about as far as it went. Since then, the actor and the filmmaker have repeatedly teased that it’ll happen eventually, with the director saying in 2024 that “it’s still a dream and a plan,” but there’s no tangible evidence to prove it.
Russian film The Challenger even beat him to the punch, becoming the first picture to place an actor outside of Earth’s orbit for a performance. There’s also the fact that the production is dependent on Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and he’s been too busy destabilising the free world and generally being an annoyance to focus too much attention on capitulating to Cruise’s demands.
It takes extensive, exhaustive, and arduous training for anyone to be allowed a spacewalk, especially a civilian, never mind one who turned 63 years old on July 3rd, 2025. Realistically, given his schedule and how long it would take to put himself into a position where the governing bodies and authorities would let him do it, Cruise will most likely be pushing 70 if and when the cameras start rolling.
Obviously, this being Tom Cruise, it can’t be ruled out. He’s conquered every mode of transport and daredevil feat on the ground, which means that for his career, space is quite literally the final frontier. It’s been half a decade of nothingness, though, making the film his ultimate white whale that he may never catch.
