Donna Langley is the first British woman to run a major American film studio, and it also happens to be the oldest. She has big plans for the future, and they include nothing less than sending Tom Cruise to space. The long-rumoured project is still gestating at this stage, but she is determined to make it happen.
In a major new interview with the BBC, Langley said that Cruise plans to take a rocket up to the International Space Station. The proposed movie’s plot, which Cruise and director Doug Liman pitched to her on Zoom during the pandemic, “actually takes place on earth, and then the character needs to go up to space to save the day.”
“Tom Cruise is taking us to space. He’s taking the world to space. That’s the plan. We have a great project in development with Tom, that does contemplate him doing just that. Taking a rocket up to the space station and shooting and hopefully being the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station.”
Many people have speculated that the Mission: Impossible franchise would eventually take Ethan Hunt to space, but it looks as though this will be a separate project from the long-running action movie series.
In the interview, Langley also discussed future plans for the studio, which include Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, and the movie about the Harvey Weinstein scandal – She Said. As well as the new Fast and Furious movie, of course.
According to the BBC; “With the future of cinema still in the balance, Langley accepts that streaming movies at home is here to stay. She earned the fury of cinema chains when she decided during the pandemic to put Universal’s new Trolls movie straight on to a streaming platform. She says it was a “watershed moment”. It certainly severed the tradition of big movies going first into cinemas.”
And in terms of what will keep enticing audiences to cinemas, Langley says; “To make movies matter, to make them connect with the cultural zeitgeist, to create movie stars and to create directors and careers – it really does need that theatrical experience.”
While we wait to have my minds blown by Cruise in space, check out our guide to the best science fiction movies.