While action film actor Tom Cruise has his detractors, you cannot say he is not successful. Recently starring in the Top Gun – Maverick, the long awaited successor to the Top Gun (1986) film that originally made him a major star, he is credited with bringing back, and even more importantly, entertaining cinema audiences after the pandemic. The movie has gained plaudits including six Oscar nominations including one for Best Film. So what is next after this aerospace extravaganza? Well space actually. Tom Cruise is to star in a space movie – one that will actually be filmed in space. This was announced in May 2020 but the momentum continues.
Top Gun: Maverick Courtesy: Paramount
It has been confirmed (as reported by Tesmanian.com) that a special film studio spherical inflatable module dubbed Space Entertainment Enterprise-1 (SEE-1) named after the production company, SEE-1 has now been ordered and is being built by the Houston-based Axiom and which will be fitted onto the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024. Tom Cruise himself will be launched to the ISS aboard a Falcon 9 Crew Dragon on a flight sponsored by Axiom in late 2024 after the SEE-1 has been delivered. He will thus film many of the important scenes for the as-yet-unnamed movie in space.
From experience gained with this mission, and from its other sponsored flights, Axiom eventually plans to build its own orbital space stations and lunar bases.
This is not the first space movie filmed in space. In 2021, film director/cameraman Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild spent time on the ISS filming scenes for the Russian movie Challenge. The plot involves a sick cosmonaut – played by real life cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky – having to be operated on by Peresild’s doctor character.
Artist’s impression of the spherical SEE-1 film studio module attached to the ISS. Courtesy: Axiom
