NASA and Tom Cruise talk movie plans

NASA and Tom Cruise experienced discussions about shooting a film at the International Space Station, NASA’s administrator, Jim Bridenstine, said Tuesday.

The message highlighted NASA’s growing interest to find additional commercial ventures for the area programme  through the Trump administration. But it follows a range of earlier attempts to create entertainment in space that have failed to log off the film lot or the launchpad.

Deadline, a Hollywood trade publication, first reported on Monday the probability of an out-of-this-world Tom Cruise movie. Deadline said it might be an action-adventure but not section of the “Mission: Impossible” film series that Cruise has starred in since 1996.

Deadline reported that the project also involved SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk but that the film was still in its first stages and no movie studio was involved yet.

SpaceX did not react to a request for comment.

NASA declined to provide additional details. “Not at the moment,” Matthew Rydin, the press secretary for Bridenstine, wrote within an email. “We will say more about the project at the correct time.”

NASA has been seeking to open the International Space Station to wider commercial use, beyond scientific research for new drugs and novel materials which can be grown only in zero-gravity conditions. Which includes space tourism.

Axiom Space, a startup run by a former NASA space station manager, has been selected to build a commercial module with Philippe Starck-designed interiors that might be mounted on the International Station. Even before its completion, the business is selling $55 million tickets on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft to tourists wanting to visit the more austere accommodations currently available. That flight is greater than a year away.

An Axiom spokesman declined to comment if the business was associated with Cruise’s movie plans.

In 2018 remarks, Bridenstine raised the likelihood of NASA selling naming rights to its spacecraft to companies or allowing astronauts to sign endorsement deals, but the agency has since not made any moves in those directions.

Space has long had an allure for the entertainment business. Although footage for documentaries and even tv commercials has been shot in orbit, Cruise’s project, if it goes into production, will be the first space film aim for a narrative feature film.

In 2000, Mark Burnett, the producer of “Survivor” and “The Apprentice,” had sold NBC on the idea of a reality-television series that could culminate with sending a contestant to Mir, the decaying Russian space station. But those plans fell through when Mir was abandoned and deorbited, splashing in the Pacific in 2001.

More recently, a Dutch venture, Mars One, claimed it would finance a Mars colony through a tv series, nonetheless it never even raised enough money for the ultimate collection of potential astronauts. The company entered into bankruptcy in 2019.

In January, Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese fashion billionaire who's paying SpaceX to fly him around the moon, posted an online advertisement asking for a date to accompany him on the flight. He said a video-streaming website would make a documentary of his quest called “Full Moon Lovers.” SpaceX is looking to launch Maezawa in 2023, but the giant Starship spacecraft that might be required continues to be in early development.

A week or two later, he apologized and asked for the show’s cancellation “because of personal reasons.”

The plot of Cruise’s film is unknown, but some of his previous movies have involved close cooperation with the government. The US Navy contributed to the making of both “Top Gun” in 1986 and its own forthcoming sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick,” which Cruise co-produced.