Tom Cruise Eyeing ‘Days of Thunder’ Sequel for Paramount

Tom Cruise is trying to make a sequel to a different of his motion classics, and it’s not one that you simply’d anticipate. 

The actor is speaking to Paramount a couple of follow-up to his 1990 NASCAR racing movie Days of Thunder. 

On its floor, the thought appears quite daring. Thunder wasn’t thought of a field workplace stumble on its launch (making $157 million globally with a manufacturing price range of $60 million), and the movie obtained mixed-to-negative evaluations from critics. However having revived and modernized 1984’s Prime Gun with 2022’s blockbuster Prime Gun: Maverick, the actor believes he can work related magic together with his racing drama (which, like the unique Prime Gun, was a Paramount movie produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Tony Scott). A Thunder revival has been floated earlier than — Paramount as soon as pitched a reboot of the title as a TV present for Paramount+, an concept that Cruise nixed.

Key elements embrace the venture’s script (the studio is out to potential writers now) and the 62-year-old actor-producer’s packed schedule. Cruise is about to start out taking pictures The Revenant filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s mysterious subsequent movie for Warner Bros./Legendary, creating a Doug Liman film for Common that’s set in precise house, and he’s creating a sequel to Maverick (which Cruise and Paramount each take into account a high precedence). 

“He’s speaking [to Paramount] about Prime Gun and Days of Thunder,” says a studio insider conversant in the discussions. “It’s going to be what comes collectively first when it comes to a script. It will depend on the thought and, in the end, the script.” (Cruise, sources say, has script approval over all of his initiatives).

Racing movies have turn into score trendy these days, with the success of James Mangold’s 2019 image Ford v Ferrari, Michael Mann’s much less profitable 2023 racing drama Ferrari, and subsequent 12 months’s F1 — which stars Brad Pitt and is directed by Maverick helmer Joseph Kosinski (who would seemingly be the perfect option to helm Thunder, however one imagines he wouldn’t be too eager on making back-to-back racing motion pictures). The glut of latest fast-cars-on-tracks initiatives makes the prospect of resurrecting Thunder much more daunting (think about if Maverick had been launched after three different fighter pilot motion pictures), however no less than not one of the different titles particularly discover the world of NASCAR racing, which has a decidedly totally different Americana vibe in comparison with the extra European-based world of Le Mans and Method 1.

“I don’t assume a [Days of Thunder sequel] is a horrible thought,” added the Paramount supply (the studio declined to remark for this story). “You might need stated that revisiting Prime Gun was a horrible thought. I wouldn’t low cost it.”

Days of Thunder definitely has its devotees, amongst them Tony Scott fan and collaborator Quentin Tarantino. “Palms down my favourite [racing movie] is Days of Thunder,” the director was quoted as saying in 2013. “Yeah, yeah, you snigger, however severely, I’m an enormous fan. Certain, it had an enormous price range, huge stars and an enormous director in Tony Scott, but it surely had the enjoyable of these early [American International Picture racing] motion pictures. I simply don’t assume [the genre] works should you take the entire thing too severely.” Thunder can be remembered because the movie the place Cruise met his former spouse of 11 years, Nicole Kidman, who co-starred within the venture as a neurosurgeon and love curiosity for Cruise’s USAC racer Cole Trickle.   

Then, there’s writer-director Christopher McQuarrie’s eagerly anticipated Mission: Inconceivable 8, which is lastly wrapped and in post-production. The venture has had an extended and troublesome journey, with a price range that’s reportedly approaching $400 million amid manufacturing delays — partly because of the 2023 Hollywood strikes. 

Whereas the franchise stays highly regarded and 2022’s seventh entry Mission: Inconceivable: Lifeless Reckoning — Half One largely drew raves (scoring greater than 94 p.c on Rotten Tomatoes amongst each critics and audiences), the final movie’s price range earlier than advertising was practically $300 million and its field workplace return was thought of disappointing ($566 million globally). Making issues tougher for the upcoming movie, Lifeless Reckoning ended on a cliffhanger — snapping the custom of every M:I journey being a stand-alone entry the place every movie is wholly accessible to a contemporary viewers. Paramount has since dropped the “Half One” from 7’s title. The brand new movie’s title will likely be revealed within the subsequent couple of weeks when Paramount drops the primary M:I 8 trailer.

One intriguing wrinkle: Paramount has been occupied with selling M:I 8 because the “ultimate” entry within the motion franchise as a means of boosting viewers curiosity. But Cruise has been in opposition to saying a public goodbye to Ethan Hunt — not shocking, contemplating the preternaturally youthful actor was quoted final 12 months as saying he hopes to maintain making M:I motion pictures into his 80s. (“Harrison Ford is a legend, I’ve bought 20 years to meet up with him,” Cruise stated. “I hope to maintain making Mission: Inconceivable movies till I’m his age.”)

Nonetheless, Paramount is optimistic about M:I 8 and bullishly needs to deliver the movie to Cannes — a transfer that’s these days developed a fame as high-risk for big-budget mainstream initiatives, given how the pageant’s vital reception torpedoed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Future and Horizon: An American Saga months earlier than every title opened. At the least within the case of M:I 8, the pageant is scheduled proper earlier than M:I 8 opens huge in theaters (Cannes runs Could 13 to 24; the M:I 8 launch date is Could 23), so any vital barbs from France will likely be coming across the similar time, or simply after, the film has already had its world premiere and home critic screenings. 

“I feel Tom’s in a very good place,” the studio insider famous. “And I feel Mission goes to be actually good.”

— Pamela McClintock and Mia Galuppo contributed to this report