Tom Cruise is now officially committed to starring in Universal's Oblivion , according to a report by Deadline.
The sci-fi epic will be directed by TRON: Legacy 's Joseph Kosinski, with production set to begin as early as October. Universal picked up Oblivion after Disney bailed.
The film's based on a graphic novel (which sprouted from Kosinski's own idea), and the script came from The Departed 's William Monahan (it has since been rewritten by Karl Gajdusek).
There's one hell of a catchy premise: Cruise plays a soldier repairing droids that fend off aliens on an uninhabitable Earth, while the remainder of the population lives in clouds above the surface.
He meets a beautiful woman who crash-lands on the post-apocalyptic wasteland, and she causes him to question everything he thinks he knows.
So there's plenty of opportunity for some searching existential angst amidst the alien carnage.
If Kosinski can pair the astounding visuals he created for Legacy with an original story that's closer to his heart, the results could be very special indeed.
After an underwhelming few years, Cruise looks to be staging something of a comeback. He's currently shooting musical Rock of Ages , and he's wrapped on the Brad Bird-directed Mission: Impossible 4 (or Ghost Protocol , if we must…)
