The First Action Film IN Space

​Tom Cruise might be the first celebrity to shoot an action movie in space, aboard the International Space Station.
Recently, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that the organization will be collaborating with Cruise on a movie. There are rumours that Elon Musk’s Space X will also be involved.

While all parties aren’t saying much, what we do know is that it’s not a sequel to the Mission Impossible franchise (although that would be cool) and no studio has stepped up to the plate to back this film – yet.

While discussions are likely in their early stages, the budget will blow anything previously filmed out of this world (yes, I went there.) Previously The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides holds the title for most expensive film ever made at $379 million.
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If you add up the space travel and Cruise’s usual fee, plus all the special effects, it will probably end up costing somewhere in the billions. For example, one seat alone on SpaceX costs around $52 million.

​SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars – unfortunately, we are a long way off of that goal yet. However, SpaceX has developed several launch vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit, the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station, the first propulsive landing for an orbital rocket, the first reuse of an orbital rocket, and the first private company to launch an object into orbit around the sun.

SpaceX has also flown 20 resupply missions to the International Space Station under a partnership with NASA. This led NASA to award SpaceX a further development contract to build and demonstrate a spacecraft which would be used to transport astronauts to the space station and return them safely to Earth.

Recently, SpaceX conducted the maiden launch of its Dragon 2 spacecraft on a demonstration flight this year and is set to launch its first crewed Dragon 2.

While filming a scripted action film in space is ambitious, Cruise and Musk might be just the duo needed to pull this off. Cruise is known for taking daring risks while making his films. He scaled the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, for Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol. And Musk isn't new to the entertainment world either. He's appeared in numerous movies and TV shows, often playing himself, including the Big Bang Theory, Iron Man 2, and South Park. Whether Musk will take a producing credit and partially fund this film remains to be seen.

A few films have been shot onboard the ISS, including Space Station 3D, a Canadian-American 3D short documentary film about the ISS narrated by Cruise.
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If this film actually goes through, it will be history in the making.