Because Tom Cruise has to decide between Quentin Tarantino and a Mexican director

Maybe he’s the actor who can ask for whatever he wants. Hundreds of projects need to reach you (and filter through your consultants). That’s why all of Hollywood is waiting Tom Cruise say yes or no to proposals to star in the new film Quentin Tarantino wave of 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 then The avenger, for which Leo DiCaprio won an Oscar. Recall that Cruise has been nominated four times (three for acting, once as producer of Top Gun: nonconformist), but he never understood it.

The film will be produced and directed by Iñárritu, with a screenplay he wrote in 2023 together with the authors of bird man 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, ten years ago. Most recently, Cruise appeared in Mission Impossible – Death Sentence Part 1 and the aforementioned Top Gun: nonconformist.

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

Iñárritu won two consecutive Oscars for directing bird man in 2015 and The avenger 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 gave viewers the perspective of immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border with a coyote. The project debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017 and won an Oscar for special achievement in 2018. As of 2022, he co-wrote, co-wrote, edited, produced and directed Bardwhich earned an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography.

Tom Cruise, tempted by Quentin Tarantino

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 have been discussed, including a sequel to Edge of Tomorrow and The film criticby Quentin Tarantino, which currently does not have a distributor and sees Warner Bros., like all the major film studios, fighting to have one.

At 61, Cruise remains the king of the studios, a consolidated privilege Top Gun: nonconformist of 2022, which raised $1.5 billion worldwide. But Cruise wants more than action stardom: He’d like to work with auteurs like Paul Thomas Anderson again. In fact, he hasn’t gotten an acting Oscar nomination since he appeared in Anderson’s drama Magnolia1999. Early in his career, Cruise benefited from directing heavyweights like Spielberg, Scorsese, and Kubrick, but then transitioned into a Mission: Impossible-oriented phase in which he regularly defied the laws of time and gravity.

In Tarantino, Cruise may 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 in distribution Once upon a time… in HollywoodTarantino’s latest.

However, a Cruise-Tarantino alliance at Warner would align with De Luca-Abdy’s 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 made some expensive deals: There’s Anderson’s next film, which will star Leonardo DiCaprio (who earns more than $20 million), and a film about vampires by Ryan Coogler-Michael B. Jordan which presents Warner ceding the copyright to Coogler after 25 years.