Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise once scrapped plans for a space movie because it involved him asking US President Donald Trump for a favour.
Helmed by 'Edge of Tomorrow' fame Doug Liman, the action-adventure film was to be shot in actual outer space in 2020, in collaboration with NASA and SpaceX.
However, these plans hit a roadblock when he was told that he would have to get Donald Trump to approve the idea, as it involved NASA coordination, an insider told Page Six.
"You’d need permission from the federal government ... Tom didn’t want to ask for political reasons," the insider said.
A Trump-appointed NASA official named Jim Bridenstine had also openly showed support for the ambitious film at the time.
“NASA is excited to work with @TomCruise on a film aboard the @Space_Station! We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make @NASA’s ambitious plans a reality,” he had said in an X post that was later deleted.
Yet, the 63-year-old actor is known for staying clear of politics, and the insider said that he did not want to start taking sides just for the film.
In that regard, Cruise had even skipped the 48th Kennedy Center Honors ceremony earlier this month, hosted by Trump after he took over the arts centre at the start of his second term in 2025.
The red carpet before the Kennedy Center Honors was a star-studded affair, with entertainers, celebrities, politicians, artists, and our Chairman and the evening’s host, President Donald J. Trump, gathering at the nation’s performing arts center to celebrate the 48th class of… pic.twitter.com/akAIbAQDmK
— The Kennedy Center (@kencen) December 8, 2025
He had cited scheduling conflicts as the reason for skipping the Trump-hosted ceremony (when he received an invitation in August), a Washington Post report said, citing unnamed sources at the Kennedy Center.
Cruise's next collaboration with Liman—an undersea thriller alongside Ana De Armas called Deeper—is also facing trouble, but for different reasons.
Apart from the film's budget issues, the news of which came out in July this year, it is also facing the possible departure of Liman, a ScreenRant report said, citing various sources.
Today, I share the first photo taken last year during a rehearsal on the set of my new film with Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
— Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) November 18, 2025
1/2 pic.twitter.com/3f9wgPh81T
Cruise will next be seen in Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's untitled action film, set to release in October 2026.
