Ten years after being released to critical acclaim and commercial success, Doug Liman’s sci-fi action extravaganzaEdge of Tomorrowhas repeated its popularity onNetflixin 2024. Among the most-watched movies on the platform since its addition in August, the Tom Cruise star vehicle continues to inch closer to an official sequel. According to Liman inan interview with Varietyin July 2024, the time-loop action-thriller features a world the original cast and crew are willing to return to. However, if the original movie’s altered ending were left intact, perhaps they’d feel differently.
Indeed,Edge of Tomorrowfans may be unaware of the much darker alternative ending originally scripted for the sci-fi thriller. More fascinating yet, Tom Cruise was the one who suggested ending the film on a more positive and uplifting note, proving why he’s arguably the greatest movie star storyteller of the 21st century. As the film celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2024, looking back atEdge of Tomorrow’s twisted alternate ending and peering ahead toEdge of Tomorrow 2couldn’t be more timely.
Edge of Tomorrow
Edge of Tomorrow’s Official Ending
Loosely based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novelAll You Need is Kill, Edge of Tomorrowis an American science fiction action thriller directed by Doug Liman.Tom Cruise stars as Major William Cage, a global United Defense Force (UFD) PR officer forced to guide the resistance against the Mimics, a deadly alien race occupying Europe in a post-apocalyptic future. Despite his lack of combat experience, Cage is continually forced to fight for his life after becoming trapped in a mysterious time loop. In what functions as a hyper-violent militaristicversion ofGroundhog Day,Cage turns to former war heroSargeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt)for help.
Dispatched to the frontline in France to fight the Mimics, Cage uses a landmine to blow up an Alpha Mimic. When he awakes at Heathrow Airport the following day,Cage realizes he has died and is reliving the previous day over and over. Every day, Cage dies a gruesome death on the beach due to the time-altering Omega blood in his body, only to wake up at Heathrow and repeat the horrors. Yet, each day, Cage also gains more battlefield experience, learning more about the time loop and how it works.
As Cage and Vrataski work together, they learn the Mimics are a hive-minded superorganism controlled by Omega. They discover that each time an Alpha Mimic is murdered, Omega resets the time loop and alters its methods until the aliens emerge victoriously. Once the discovery is made, Cage and Vrataski train to fight the Omega by entering several time loops and bolstering their combat skills.The movie ends with Cage saving the world by successfully destroying the Omega and the Mimics, although he is the only one who remembers what transpired. It’s a much happier and more uplifting ending than whatscreenwriter Christopher McQuarrieoriginally had in mind.
The Much Darker Alternative Ending
Edge of Tomorrow’s darker alternative ending, discarded during filming, would have picked up as Cage and Vrataskiarrive in Paristo fight the Omega. Essentially repeating what the audience is well aware of by this point in the story, Cage gives a lengthy exposition explaining that killing an Alpha Mimic results in a reset time loop. Cage tells his crew, “We’ll be right back here having this conversation, and we won’t even know it.”
After warning his crew, one of Cage’s soldiers is separated from the group and is forced to kill an Alpha upon attack. Just as Cage had admonished, the Alpha’s death results in the Omega resetting the time loop, and Cage and his crew repeat the same conversation. Following the ominous line, “You can bet they’ll have a plan for killing us all,” a hail of bullets pelts the airplane.Abruptly and quite startlingly, the movie would have ended with Cage and his crew left awaiting their demise as the Mimics continue their invasion. In addition to ending with an anticlimactic downturn, Liman believes the scene’s overuse of exposition would have exhausted viewers and added to an already convoluted plot.
According to Liman viaFilm School Rejects, “When Tom loses the power, and they go to Paris, and Tom is preparing the team as they go into Paris where he’s telling them the rules of the movie, he tells the team everything the audience knows. Basically, he told them: ‘Kill as many Mimics as you want but do not kill an Alpha. If you kill an alpha we’ll be right back here having this conversation, and we won’t even know it. The enemy will know we’re coming and they’ll kill us all.'” He continued:
“When they get to Paris there’s the classic horror movie scene where one of them gets separated from the group, and he gets attacked by an Alpha and kills it. As he kills it, you see the Omega reset the day and you see the point-of-view of the villain. We cut to the plane and hear the same speech all over again. This time when he gets to the line, ‘You can bet they’ll have a plan to kill us all,’ the ship gets hit. As the audience, you realize the enemy knows they’re coming. The problem was you were so exhausted by the time you got to that point.”
Another reason McQuarrie opted for the lighter, happier ending (which Cruise suggested) related to the sense of humor injected into the story. HadEdge of Tomorrowended with a darker alternative, the script rewrites done to make audiences laugh throughout the film would have been nullified. Still, if fans look closely enough, dialog from the darker ending can be heard in the officially released cut. Regardless, the ending has little bearing on the potential sequel, something Liman, Cruise, and Blunt are all interested in making.
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What Is the Status of Edge of Tomorrow 2?
In July 2024, Doug Limanspoke with Varietyabout the potential forEdge of Tomorrow 2being made. According to the director, the principal talent involved would love to return to the world of war-torn future Europe even ten years after the original. Liman explains:
“Tom and I just actually rewatched it about two months ago, because I hadn’t seen it in 10 years. I was like, ‘Wow, that is a really good movie.No, we keep talking about it. We love that world.”
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In addition to Liman andCruise returning to the sci-fi realm, the director also says Emily Blunt is keen on returning to the franchise. According to Blunt:
“Doug and I talk all the time about it. I know Tom wants to do it, hopefully, at some point. But it’s timing, but it’s also been 10 years since we made it…There was an amazing script in the works, but I think it would only have worked if we shot it eight years ago. I’m not saying we’re that ancient, but you have to factor in it’s been 10 years.”
While Liman jokes about having bad box office luck,Edge of Tomorrowranks among his most financially successful movies. The film grossed $370 worldwide on a $178 budget (viaBox Office Mojo), and has continued to foster favor among action movie fans. WithEdge of Tomorrowinstantly shooting atop Netflix’s most-watched movie charts, one month after Liman spoke withVariety, the chances of the movie being made sooner than later are stronger than ever.
