Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise have been attached at the hip for years. They’ve worked on ten projects together, beginning with Valkyrie in 2008 and continuing through the most recent Mission: Impossible films. They have been so closely aligned that it was just assumed McQuarrie would be on the shortlist to direct Top Gun 3. However, a new report from The InSneider says otherwise, and suggests the creative partnership might be over.
According to Sneider, McQuarrie was never really in contention to direct Top Gun 3, which is weird considering he co-wrote and produced Top Gun: Maverick. But things have quietly changed between McQuarrie and Cruise. You might have noticed that McQuarrie suddenly has two non-Cruise projects in development: a King Conan movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and an adaptation of the Battlefield video game with Michael B. Jordan.
The primary reason given for the creative split is that Cruise blames McQuarrie for the underperformance of the last two Mission: Impossible movies. Both had troubled productions, and the latter had a massive budget that skyrocketed to $400M. Meanwhile, the critical response wasn’t great and the box office underwhelming when they were teased as the franchise finale.
It’s not like Cruise and McQuarrie are bitter rivals or anything. They remain “friendly” and may even work together again, but for now it seems they are taking a break.
