Edge of Tomorrow opened in the summer of 2014 to critical acclaim and a successful box office run, paving the way for a potential franchise. But director Doug Liman revealed that Edge of Tomorrow 2, which includes returning stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, will mark the end of the franchise after just two movies.
In a interview with MTV News, Edge of Tomorrow director Liman opened up about the upcoming sequel and revealed some very important details about the film, including that it will end after one sequel.
“I see this as a two-movie franchise; there’s the completion of the story we set up in the first movie and the relationships between Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt—because, remember, at the end of the first movie, she doesn’t know who he is—and that’s gonna launch us into an amazing new direction,” Liman stated. “It does pick up right where we left off, but it doesn’t keep going forward, because we’d screw with time, because the aliens screwed with time.”
It’s quite refreshing to see a movie franchise only go two movies deep. This opens up the story of to have solid ending, instead of keeping the door open for future installments. When studios see a hit, they love to pump out sequels. Just this year alone we got a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean, sixth Alien, and eighth Fast and Furious.
But Edge of Tomorrow 2 isn’t standing pat on its values of an intriguing story device and bankable stars. Liman also revealed the sequel will introduce a very important third character and the movie will be smaller in both scale and storytelling.
“I think what people tend to do with sequels is they just make them bigger,” Liman said. “And I’m like, ‘No, a sequel should be smaller. You did the first film as sort of the ad campaign for the sequel, so now you don’t need as much action, and in the case of Edge of Tomorrow, people obviously loved the comedy and they loved the situation… So we can do way more focus on Tom’s character and Emily Blunt’s character, and there’s a third character in the sequel that’s gonna for sure steal the movie. We can focus on that. I don’t need an action sequence every two minutes.”
The premise of Edge of Tomorrow was one of the more unique we’ve seen in a movie for some time now. Expanding on that seems like a no-brainer.
There is still no definitive word on when Edge of Tomorrow 2 will be made. Cruise is busy with Mission: Impossible 6, Top Gun 2 and possibly future Mummy movies. It might take another two or three years before we get to see it, but we’ll wait.
