Two names we’ve not seen together on film, though not for lack of trying, are actor/producer Tom Cruise and filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro.
Over the years the pair have developed several films together, none of which have made it out of development, with the most notable being Del Toro’s dream project – his adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”.
It turns out though one film that Del Toro did make was one that almost had Cruise in it – “Pacific Rim”. The film followed how the world came together to build two-person run giant robots that would battle kaijus rising from the depths.
Del Toro recently participated in a Q&A at Collider’s 10th anniversary screening of the film in IMAX 3D where he explained Cruise’s connection to the project – turns out he was originally earmarked for the Marshal Stacker Pentecost role which ultimately went to Idris Elba:
“The two models for Pacific Rim, the two models for the screenplay, are Hoosiers with Gene Hackman and Top Gun. So, the part that Idris Elba plays, Tom Cruise was gonna do it, and I even had a karaoke.
The deal couldn’t be made. He wanted to do it. We were developing stuff, and he couldn’t do it. I thought, ‘You know what? Let’s go with Idris Elba then. He’s a god.’ Obviously, I had to rewrite it for that, but I thought it was gonna be an interesting analog to do that. It would have been a lot of fun.”
Cruise was likely busy prepping for what became Joseph Kosinki’s sci-fi feature “Oblivion” and later Doug Liman’s “Edge of Tomorrow”. Del Toro adds that despite the opportunities to work with Cruise not coming to be, he says “we have had quite a laugh, you know? I like it. My life is so weird”.
“Pacific Rim” ultimately went on to earn around $411 million at the worldwide box office.
Source: Collider
