Tom Cruise’s Space Movie Reportedly Died Because He Refused To Beg Trump For Permission To Shoot It In Space

Scientology cult member Tom Cruise sure sounds like a terrible husband and father, but he’s also the only true action star we have left. It isn’t just because he insists on doing his own stunts, either (although that’s part of it). As far as Cruise is concerned, there’s no reason to fake a stunt with a green screen when he could actually jump an actual motorcycle off a real-life cliff. However, even Tom Cruise was unwilling to do what it took to shoot a space movie in space, Page Six reports. Why? Because he refused to beg Trump for a favor.

All the way back in 2020, Cruise and director Doug Liman announced they were working on a movie that would be shot in space with the help of SpaceX and NASA. Five years after the announcement, though, that movie still hasn’t happened. And according to “an insider familiar with the filmmakers,” it’s because “they would need NASA coordination to do the movie, and supposedly Tom Cruise did not want to ask Donald Trump for a favor. You’d need permission from the federal government.”

According to the anonymous source (Cruise’s assistant? Tom Cruise himself?), “Tom didn’t want to ask for political reasons.” As Page Six put it, “Cruise has stayed largely apolitical over the years, and the source said he did not want to alienate fans by starting now.” 

Unlike Akio Toyoda, Cruise may have drawn the line at debasing himself by begging for Trump’s support, but that wasn’t the only obstacle in the way of getting the movie made. Despite reports that Liman is still in great shape, he’s also rumored to have failed a physical that was required to determine whether or not he was healthy enough to go into space. Additionally, finding a company to insure a movie shot in literal space reportedly proved to be a challenge for some reason, and that may have doomed the project even if it had received Trump’s blessing.

That said, obtaining NASA’s support may not have been as unlikely as it probably seems. When the project was first announced back in 2020, Trump-appointed NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted, “NASA is excited to work with @TomCruise on a film aboard the @Space_Station! We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make @NASA’s ambitious plans a reality.” Being allowed to shoot a movie on the International Space Station would have been objectively rad as hell, but Bridenstine, who now sits on the board of a company called Voyager Space Holdings, has since deleted the tweet, and “space insiders tell Page Six there have never been any further discussions inside the space agency about the film.”

So sadly, the Tom Cruise space movie shot on the ISS isn’t happening. It’s probably for the best, especially when you think about how much money it would have cost to shoot in space, but I’m also not going to pretend I’m not a little sad we’ll never see it. After all, if anyone could make a movie in space profitable, it’s probably Tom Cruise. But we are still getting a “Days of Thunder” sequel, so at least there’s that.