Exclusive: Tom Cruise Eyed For Black Hole Remake At Disney
Tom Cruise may star in a remake of Disney's The Black Hole for director Joseph Kosinski.
This article is more than 2 years old
Tom Cruise is being considered to lead a remake of the 1979 Disney science fiction film The Black Hole, which has been in development with director Joseph Kosinski for years. According to our trusted and proven sources, Kosinski is specifically interested in getting Tom Cruise for The Black Hole after working with him on another high-concept science fiction movie, 2013’s Oblivion. At this point, the question most likely is not whether Tom Cruise could be cast in The Black Hole but whether he would want to do a remake.
Although Tom Cruise has never really had a low point in his career (couch-jumping, notwithstanding), he is currently at a new peak of popularity. Top Gun: Maverick has become a true cultural phenomenon, grossing $1.4 billion and swiftly becoming the highest box office performer of the star’s entire career. As such, Tom Cruise is in a nearly unprecedented position to pick the films he wants to do, including The Black Hole remake.
It is also notable that Tom Cruise is, at the moment, deeply invested in his long-running Mission: Impossible franchise, with the next two installments Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Part Two currently in back-to-back production with his longtime collaborator Christopher McQuarrie. Apparently, Tom Cruise is also in talks to be the first civilian ever to spacewalk (with the aid of NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX), so his potential involvement with The Black Hole might be dependent on him surviving the rigors of actual space.
But if anyone could get Tom Cruise to star in The Black Hole remake, it might be Joseph Kosinski. Oblivion was released to mixed reviews and a decent, though not exceptional box office gross (for Tom Cruise, anyway), but was one of the few non-franchise movies that the actor has made since 2010. That alone should show that Tom Cruise has some faith in Joseph Kosinski, which could go a long way for this new project.
On the other hand, The Black Hole remake has been in development at Disney since 2009 and was put on hold in 2016, reportedly due to its screenplay being “too dark” for the company’s brand. Joseph Kosinski has also said that the movie was being delayed because it was perceived as having too many similarities to Christopher Nolan’s 2014 movie Interstellar, but perhaps enough time has passed that Disney is willing to give it another shot.
The original Black Hole movie was a minor hit for Disney in 1979 and was nominated for two Academy Award nominations for its impressive, cosmic visuals and pioneering use of early CGI. It also had an unusually dark storyline that recalled early science fiction films like Forbidden Planet (1956) and mixed ideas of interdimensional forces of darkness and light like a Disney-brand version of Event Horizon. Undoubtedly, a remake of the film with Tom Cruise would attempt an even more ambitious version of The Black Hole.
For now, we shall just have to wait and see if the next step for Tom Cruise is to finally team up with Disney for The Black Hole. Stranger things have happened in his career.
