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Earlier this year, it was reported that frequent Quentin Tarantino collaborator Brad Pitt was circling a starring role in the iconic director’s allegedly final feature film, The Movie Critic.
Pitt and Tarantino have worked together twice before on two of the latter’s most beloved movies: Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with 2019’s Hollywood earning Pitt an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Now, according to a report from Variety, fellow iconic actor Tom Cruise is apparently circling a role in the film as he wants to “return to working with auteurs like Paul Thomas Anderson.”
“In January, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy jetted to London to connect with the new crown jewel of the studio, Tom Cruise. Sources say a raft of possibilities were discussed, including an Edge of Tomorrow follow-up and Quentin Tarantino’s The Movie Critic, which currently isn’t set up with a distributor and has Warner Bros., like every major studio, salivating… Cruise wants more than action stardom — he’d like to return to working with auteurs like Paul Thomas Anderson.”
Cruise wanting to make a return to dramatic acting alongside his action-hero career is a win for all movie fans as there was a time when Cruise was considered to be among the best actors of his generation and not just a “movie star.”
And with the Mission: Impossible franchise seeming to reach its end — Cruise can’t do this forever, can he? — now would certainly be the time for Cruise to use his somewhat dormant dramatic chops.
It has, however, been 25 years since Cruise was nominated for an Academy Award, with his last nomination coming in 1999 for his work in Anderson’s Magnolia.
Now, that’s not to say that Cruise is entirely abandoning his status as an action star as he’s still working on a movie with Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman that’s set to be shot in space.