- Years after the initial update, the wheels are once again in motion for a Tropic Thunder spin-off movie centred on the acerbic Les Grossman (Tom Cruise).
- Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie noted it was one of several priorities in the wake of conversations that occurred during the production of Final Reckoning.
- Cruise confirmed such a project was in development with B.H. back in 2023 during the Sydney premiere of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.
With the Ethan Hunt chapter of his storied career ostensibly closed – at least for the time being – Tom Cruise is now weighing up where he’ll take his borderline acolytic dedication to cinema next. And according to longtime collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, a Les Grossman movie has been made a priority.
During an appearance on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning director revealed he and Cruise have been discussing a standalone project for the iconic Tropic Thunder scene-stealer.
“The conversations we’ve had about Les Grossman are so f**king funny,” said McQuarrie.
“[Tom Cruise and I are] talking about it, we’re having very serious conversations about it, and how best to do it. It ultimately comes down to what that character is.”
McQuarrie went on to elaborate how he and Cruise used the potential Les Grossman spin-off as something of an escape from the production of Final Reckoning, spitballing the possibilities together over meals.
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“We don’t even think about the structure, we play with scenes,” he continued.
“Just to be sitting at a breakfast table, not talking about the movie we’re making for a minute, is such decompression. And just riffing with Tom playing Les Grossman at the table, it was one of the real joys of making this movie. It was all the stuff we were doing, planning the future while slugging out the present.”
A Les Grossman/Tropic Thunder spin-off has been in the conversation since 2022. The following year, during Sydney’s red carpet premiere of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, B.H. received exclusive confirmation that something within this realm was in the works.
“Nothing,” Tom Cruise replied with a grin when prompted about whether he could shed any light on the matter before letting out a tell-tale laugh.
“We’re working on it.”
The day prior, during our sit-down interview with Christopher McQuarrie, the seasoned filmmaker was similarly tight-lipped, offering an incredibly evasive answer before letting out his own tell-tale laugh.
“Can you tell us anything about it?” we asked.
“Uh… no,” chuckled McQuarrie before we moved on.
This wouldn’t be the first time the Les Grossman movie carrot was dangled, either.
Over a decade ago, shortly after Tom Cruise fat-suited up for the 2010 MTV Movie Awards, Paramount and MTV Films announced the spin-off was in active development with a screenplay being penned by Michael Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Project X, 21 Jump Street).
“Les Grossman’s life story is an inspiring tale of the human class struggle to achieve greatness against all odds,” expressed Tropic Thunder co-star and director Ben Stiller, who was set to produce the Grossman flick.
“He has assured me he plans to quote, ‘Fucking kill the shit out of this movie and make Citizen f**king Kane look like a piece of crap home movie by the time we are done.’ I am honoured to be working with him.”
“Everything I learned in this business, I’ve learned from Les,” added Paramount Film Group President Adam Goodman.
“I started out as his assistant, and from the first day he threw his desk at me when I got his lunch order wrong, I have loved him like a father.”
A Paramount press release also included a “statement” from Tom Cruise as Les Grossman after being prompted about what the Tropic Thunder spin-off screenplay would actually entail:
“To quote my great friend Kirk Lazarus [portrayed by Robert Downey Jr], `I don’t read the script, the script reads me.’”
The Les Grossman revelation comes just over a week after Tom Cruise told Today Show Australia that he and Paramount were also considering a Days of Thunder sequel, alongside a continuation of the freshly revived Top Gun franchise.
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“Yeah, we’re thinking and talking about many different stories and what could we do and what’s possible. It took me 35 years to figure out Top Gun: Maverick, so all of these things we’re working on, we’re discussing Days of Thunder and Top Gun: Maverick,” said the 62-year-old action star.
Cruise added: “There’s numerous other films that we’re actively working on right now. I’m always shooting a film, prepping a film, posting a film. I just finished a film with Alejandro Iñárritu too, who did The Revenant, and we’ll be coming out with that. That was an extraordinary experience and [Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie] and I are always working on several different films.”
There’s the matter of the long-gestating Universal picture set in actual space being helmed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow, American Made); reportedly titled Deeper and to be shot in cooperation with NASA and SpaceX, it follows “an astronaut who encounters a terrifying force while on a deep dive into a never-before-explored trench.”
At this rate, the man might actually live up to his tongue-in-cheek promise of making movies into his 100s.
