The original Edge of Tomorrow is wonderful. A funny, exciting and inventive story from beginning to end. Its biggest problem is that no one really saw it. Financially, it was a disappointment, but the film’s writer thinks he has some ideas on how to change that.


In a new interview, Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote Edge of Tomorrow as well as The Usual Suspects and just directed Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, confirmed the previous story that Tom Cruise has an idea for a sequel. More important than that, he thinks if the sequel gets made (and that’s a big “if”) he knows how he can get more audiences to see it. By making it easier for Warner Bros. to sell to audiences:

What I’ve learned, having made Mission, is what I would write into the movie to make that movie an easier sell. Edge of Tomorrow was incredibly difficult to market. From the look of the film…To the title of the film, whatever the title was, whether it was All You Need is Kill or Edge of Tomorrow — and God help us figuring out what the title of the sequel is. The Edge of the Day After Tomorrow? I don’t know. But the humor in the film took a good 35 minutes to really dawn on you – the movie really sneaks up on you and takes this sudden left turn. The movie didn’t have the moments that a trailer needs to tell you, “This is the experience you’re going to have.”


It’s true. Watch the trailers for that film (conveniently embedded below) and the movie looks like the film that made it into theaters, but doesn’t convey its tone or personality. Plus, there really aren’t huge visual moments to sell. It’s all sort of similar. So, what McQuarrie is saying is if they make a sequel, he’d put more of that in there to make it easier for the studio to make a good trailer or poster.

Need an example? Well in the same interview with Uproxx, McQuarrie explains that the scene in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation with Cruise on the side of the plane was pretty much conceived to be used in trailers and posters. A scene that says, “This is what you have in store.”

To be fair though, he seems pretty skeptical about the sequel happening at all:

It all comes down to Warner Bros. and Doug Liman and Emily Blunt saying yes. The idea is there. At worst, it’s the kernel of an idea – which is, on one hand, great, but on the other hand, I know what a nightmare that is. I know that I’ll be in the void trying to figure that out.


Here are those trailers.

[Uproxx]