Tom Cruise is a powerhouse actor known across the world as the go-to action star of his generation having taken on the role of Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise which will be eight times by the time the two-part finale is released as well as shot his recent sequel to Top Gun, Maverick, to over a billion and counting at the global box office.
But what comes next for such a star—as he enters his 60s, Cruise is looking for projects that maybe strain his knees a little less and test his acting chops a little more, and he’s doing it with writer/director of the last four Mission: Impossible entries, Christopher McQuarrie by his side. Deadline is reporting that together they’ve got quite the line-up planned not least of which is the pair of them eyeing a musical, and possibly bringing back Cruise’s Tropic Thunder bullying studio exec, Les Grossman.
Cruise and McQuarrie have been looking to their post Mission: Impossible future together, having already gotten underway on part 8 per recent photos. It’s life after spying that’s got their interest and there are three projects they keep talking about. The first is Cruise’s literally-set-in-space sci-fi actioner McQuarrie is producing and will be using Elon Musk’s Space X technology to pull off. The next is the musical that cruise wants to do, craving another go at the genre after his less-than-stellar Rock of Ages debut. The last would be something involving Cruise’s monstrous producer from Tropic Thunder, Les Grossman.
Tom Cruise has shown he's got all the right moves for a musical, whether it's his sock slide in Risky Business or his dance over the end credits of Tropic Thunder. There Cruise, as Les Grossman—clad in a costume that makes him look and sound like Tom Cruise in a fat suit—shakes his money maker over the end credits, gold chains rattling, booty rumbling in time to Ludacris’ “Get Back.”
It's also not the first time Cruise has sung on screen, having been the titular rocker at the center of Rock of Ages, a comedy musical that came and went without much fanfare in 2012. All of this means that Cruise has the preparation behind him to take on whatever role he and McQuarrie have cooked up, but he may still wish he was back hanging off the side of a plane or scaling the Burj Khalifa as he did in Mission: Impossible when critics and theater nerds get ahold of him. Whether or not any of these projects pan out, Cruise is bold enough to take them on.
Source: Deadline