Why Tom Cruise must decide between Quentin Tarantino or a Mexican director

He is, perhaps, the actor who can ask for whatever he wants. Hundreds of projects must reach him (and filter his advisors). That’s why all of Hollywood is waiting for Tom Cruise say yes or no to the proposals to act in the new movie Quentin Tarantino o la de Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment are in negotiations for a new film by Mexican director González Iñárritu, starring Tom Cruise. The untitled project would be Iñárritu’s first English-language film since The revenant, for which Leo DiCaprio won an Oscar. Let us remember that Cruise was nominated four times (three for acting, once as producer of Top Gun: Maverick), but he never got it.

The film will be produced and directed by Iñárritu, with a script that he co-wrote in 2023 with the co-writers of Birdman the Argentine Nicolás Giacobone and Alexander Dinelaris, along with Sabina Berman. Plot details are being kept under wraps.

This will be Cruise’s first film since signing a deal to develop and produce films with Warner Bros. Discovery in January. His last project with the studio was On the edge of tomorrow, a decade ago. Most recently, Cruise appeared in Mission: Impossible – Death Sentence Part 1 and the aforementioned Top Gun: Maverick.

Cruise’s other upcoming films include his eighth film Mission Impossiblefor Paramount, as well as an action film for Universal from Doug Liman, which will make him “the first civilian to do a spacewalk” outside the International Space Station.

Iñárritu won consecutive Academy Awards for his direction of Birdman in 2015 and The revenant in 2016. He followed those projects with Flesh and Sand (Flesh and sand) from 2017, a virtual reality film. It was a short film that offered viewers the perspective of immigrants crossing the border between the United States and Mexico with a coyote. The project debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017 and won an Oscar for special achievement in 2018. In 2022, he co-wrote, co-wrote, edited, produced and directed Bardowhich earned an Oscar nomination for best cinematography.

In January, Warner Bros. bosses Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy traveled to London to connect with the studio’s new crown jewel, Tom Cruise. The three met to identify a film that would kick off their non-exclusive “strategic partnership.” Sources say a number of possibilities were discussed, including a sequel to Edge of Tomorrow and The Movie Criticby Quentin Tarantino, which currently does not have a distributor and has Warner Bros., like all the major studios, fighting to have it.

At 61, Cruise remains the king of the studios, a privilege solidified with Top Gun: Maverick of 2022, which raised $1.5 billion worldwide. But Cruise wants more than action stardom: he would like to work again with auteurs like Paul Thomas Anderson. In fact, he hasn’t earned an Oscar nomination for acting since he appeared in Anderson’s drama Magnoliafrom 1999. Early in his career, Cruise benefited from being directed by heavyweights like Spielberg, Scorsese, and Kubrick, but then transitioned into a Mission: Impossible-oriented phase in which he routinely defied the laws of time and gravity.

In Tarantino, Cruise could find the rare auteur who combines box office performance and awards. However, securing the project will not be cheap. The biggest obstacle for De Luca and Abdy is potentially Sony. Sources say Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Tom Rothman has the upper hand, since he distributed Once upon a time… in HollywoodTarantino’s last.

Still, a Cruise-Tarantino alliance at Warner would align with the De Luca-Abdy modus operandi: attracting A-list directors who can attract real stars and spend big. Since taking over the studio in July 2022, De Luca and Abdy have struck some expensive deals: There’s Anderson’s next movie, which will feature Leonardo DiCaprio (earning more than $20 million), and a vampire movie by Ryan Coogler-Michael B. Jordan that features Warner handing over the copyright to Coogler after 25 years.