'Edge of Tomorrow' Director on the Film's Battle-Filled Production
In the sci-fi thriller Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise plays a future soldier who must die in the same war, over and over, until he figures out how to win. For director Doug Liman, the process of making the $175 million blockbuster wasn’t so different from Cruise’s onscreen struggle.
“Being thrust into a huge battle where you’re not sure what’s going on or what to do while things are exploding around you — that’s a pretty accurate description,” Liman told Rolling Stonein an interview published Friday. “I was in over my head, and I needed time to find my way out. Misssteps were made.”
“Missteps were made” is an unusual thing for a major director to say WHILE PROMOTING HIS NEW movie. But Liman is notorious for the chaos he brings to his sets, dubbed “Limania” by one screenwriter. A Los Angeles Times article from last week lists a few examples: On 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, he went more than $20 million over budget, building his own set in his mother’s garage when funds ran out and blowing it up with a hand grenade. During shooting of 2002’s The Bourne Identity, Liman had his production crew work overtime to light a forest, so that Liman could play paintball there after hours. Even his experience directing Swingers, the 1996 indie hit he made with his buddies, ended with a rift between him and writer-star Jon Favreau.
Power struggles, delays and reckless spending have plagued more than one Liman film, Edge of Tomorrow being no exception. The “exo-suits” are one example. Because he wanted the film to feel “like an old war movie, not some sci-fi summer blockbuster thing,” Liman had the robotic armor manufactured instead of computer animated. At first, the suits kept breaking. By the time the design was sturdy enough to survive the action, the exo-suits were so heavy that Cruise required, by Liman’s own admission, “cranes, wires and weeks of rehearsal just to have him do the simplest thing.”
Shooting on Edge of Tomorrowwas so stressful that, at one point, a shouting match erupted between Liman and co-star Emily Blunt. As the director recalls in the Los Angeles Times, Blunt said, “I’ve never made a movie like this before!” After which, Liman snapped, “Well, neither have I!”
The director’s freewheeling, manic approach to filmmaking might have taken him off studios’ short lists long ago — if his movies weren’t so profitable. Like The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith before it, Edge of Tomorrow has received strong reviews. But no matter how it performs this weekend, Liman is unlikely to change his methods. ”Tom’s character is wrestling with the notion of whether he’s really good enough to do what he has to in order to survive,” Liman tells Rolling Stone, “and that’s a question I wrestle with on a daily basis.”
Want to see Edge of Tomorrow? Visit our Showtimes page to get tickets.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.
