The prospect of owing President Trump a favor caused Tom Cruise to scrap his planned space movie, according to a report in Page Six.
“From what I understand, 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,” an insider told Page Six. “Tom didn’t want to ask for political reasons.”
As previously reported, Cruise was set to reunite with Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman for the project, which they pitched to Universal Pictures chairwoman Donna Langley over Zoom during the pandemic. In a 2022 BBC interview, Langley said the movie “actually takes place on Earth, and then the character needs to go up to space to save the day.” For that purpose, Cruise wanted to take a rocket up to the International Space Station (ISS).
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When news of the film first surfaced in 2020, former Trump-appointed NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine posted a since-deleted tweet stating that the space agency was “excited” to work with Cruise on the movie aboard the ISS: “We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make @NASA’s ambitious plans a reality.”
Cruise has largely stayed apolitical over the years. In August, however, he turned down a Kennedy Center Honor from Trump, citing “scheduling conflicts.”
