On the eve(ish) of the release of his newest directorial effort, ‘American Made,’ Doug Liman has stopped to take some time to chat about another of his collaborations with star Tom Cruise, the 2014 well-received sci-fi time-travel film ‘Edge of Tomorrow,‘ sometimes otherwise known as ‘Live Die Repeat.’ Although Liman has never directed a sequel before, he’s diving in full-throttle with Cruise on a new adventure, as they are soon to begin work on an ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ sequel.
One of the most pressing questions for the director, according to a recent interview, is just what the heck the movie will be called. You see, Liman really, really wanted the first film to be titled ‘Live Die Repeat,’ but production company Warner Bros put their foot down and decided to title the film instead as ‘Edge of Tomorrow.’ When the film hit home-video, however, Liman’s preferred title was featured prominently on the Blu-Ray and DVD boxes, prompting him to launch head-first back into the battle for the naming rights:
“I’m hoping to rebrand [the first film] fully as ‘Live Die Repeat,’ and the sequel will be inspired from that, whether it’s ‘Live Die Repeat and Repeat’ or something else. Tom and I make movies for the long term, and I really think about getting the title settled for posterity.
“Normally there are financial decisions behind making a sequel, but with this, it was just about us coming up with a story. Really, it’s not a world I was eager to go back to, because dealing with time travel can make your head hurt. But there was so much affection from fans of the movie — more than any of my other movies! — that Tom and I felt that we owed it to ourselves to at least think about what a sequel could be.”
So, the next burning question, aside from titling idiosyncrasies, of course, is just what the heck the sequel might be about? Liman, fortunately, elaborated on this as well:
“It picks up where the last one left off, but then we go backwards in time. I love it way more than the story of the original film. I like antiheroes; pretty much all of my films are about antiheroes, including ‘American Made.'”
The sequel does not have a planned release date as of yet – and we’ll see if there are any production delays as Liman potentially holds out for his title of choice.
