Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie Are Having ‘Serious Conversations' About a ‘Tropic Thunder' Spinoff
Though still in the thick of promoting 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,' writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise are already working on their next pair-up — it just might not be what you expect.
'The conversations we've had about Les Grossman are so fucking funny,' McQuarrie said in a recent interview with Josh Horowitz on his 'Happy Sad Confused' podcast.
More from IndieWire
'Mission: Impossible': Director Christopher McQuarrie Climbed Onto the Wing of a 140-mph Plane Himself
All 8 'Mission: Impossible' Movies, Ranked Worst to Best
Cruise played the fictional Hollywood power player in the 2008 satire 'Tropic Thunder' from director Ben Stiller. Heavily modeled on Scott Rudin, Grossman is a Diet Coke-swilling, obscenity-prone producer with no filter and tendencies toward anger, as well as dance. It may sound silly to center an entire film around him, but McQuarrie and Cruise are actively looking for a way in.
'We're having serious conversations about it and how best to do it,' McQuarrie said. 'It ultimately comes down to what that character is.'
The big question remains whether people will want to watch a film with Grossman as the lead character. McQuarrie explained that the 'leading man' status Cruise holds makes it difficult to place him in roles that are so monstrous. Even with 'Magnolia,' which earned Cruise an Academy Award nomination, the actor was part of a very large ensemble, making it easier for him not to have to carry the whole film.
'Ethan Hunt, a character of whom people can be critical, is on rails,' said McQuarrie. 'There's so little he is able to do outside of his responsibilities as a leading man and when you try and push those boundaries, 'Mission' instantaneously cease to become 'Mission.''
Right now, McQuarrie and Cruise are not trying to figure out a plot to drop Grossman into as much as they're thinking of specific scenes they'd like to see him play. Moreover, discussing ideas around this character has offered a welcome reprieve from their other responsibilities, particularly on 'The Final Reckoning.'
'Just to be sitting at the breakfast table, not talking about the movie we're making for a minute,' McQuarrie told Horowitz, 'is such decompression. And just riffing with Tom, playing to Les Grossman — it was one of the real joys of making this movie.'
In addition to this possible 'Tropic Thunder' spinoff, McQuarrie and Cruise are also working on a number of other ideas, including a 'Days of Thunder' sequel, another installment in the 'Top Gun' franchise, and a musical.
Watch McQuarrie's full interview on 'Happy Sad Confused' below.
'Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning' is currently in theaters from Paramount Pictures.
Best of IndieWire
Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See
'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie
The 55 Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Is ITV the best FTSE bargain stock about today?
ITV (LSE:ITV) has often looked like a dirt-cheap FTSE stock to me, and I've tried to talk myself into investing (possibly out of nostalgia for shows like Heartbeat and A Touch of Frost!). But when I check in every few months to review the share, it's gone nowhere. Not much has changed on this front. The share price is up 1% in 12 months and down 1% over five years. Not great drama then, though someone who invested four years ago would be down by 38%. Yet I can still see the appeal. There's a well-supported 6.3% dividend yield on offer, and the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 7.7 is very undemanding. Indeed, it could prove to be an outright bargain if investors start reassessing the broadcaster's prospects. Let's take a closer look. Like one of its two-part dramas, ITV is split into two businesses. There's the Media & Entertainment unit, which houses its broadcasting (traditional TV channels) and streaming (ITVX) operations. This earns money primarily through advertising. The other part is ITV Studios, which is its production business. This creates content for both itself and third-party streaming companies like Disney, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), and Amazon Prime Video. For example, it made Rivals (Disney), Run Away (Netflix), and The Devil's Hour (Amazon Prime Video). And it licences out popular TV formats like I'm a Celebrity... and Love Island around the world. In Q1, Studios' revenue edged up 1% as it recovered from the Hollywood strikes, but the other division reported a 2% fall in ad revenue. Group revenue was down 1% to £875m. My view is that I like the Studios operation and think there's value in it. In fact, I'm surprised a content-hungry streaming giant hasn't swooped in and acquired it — or the whole company — by now. After all, ITV's enterprise value is £3.37bn. For context, Netflix plans to spend approximately $18bn (£13.3bn) on content this year alone! For me, these figures put into sharp focus what ITV is up against. Netflix has become the global TV channel and has ambitions to become a $1trn company by 2030. In contrast, ITV's revenue is forecast to rise by less than 2% this year. It's important to understand the competitive dynamics here. While Netflix's profits and content budget march upwards, traditional UK broadcasters are having to make cuts. For example, the wonderful BBC period drama Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light had to cut loads of planned scenes set outside due to budget constraints. Cast members had to take a pay cut to get it finished. Wolf Hall's director Peter Kosminsky said there is no way the BBC or ITV could afford to make Netflix's hit series Adolescence (too many paid extras, for one). I fear this will eventually show up in programming quality, cementing Netflix's dominance further. Recently, MPs suggested taxing streaming giants to save the UK TV industry from oblivion. This presents some regulatory risk for Netflix. While I'm broadly supportive of this, I'm also not keen to invest in an industry that might need saving by the government. Of course, ITV could be acquired, potentially creating decent returns from today's 78p. But I would rather consider investing in the disruptors (Netflix, Disney, or Amazon) than the disrupted. The post Is ITV the best FTSE bargain stock about today? appeared first on The Motley Fool UK. More reading 5 Stocks For Trying To Build Wealth After 50 One Top Growth Stock from the Motley Fool John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Ben McPoland has no position in any of the shares mentioned. The Motley Fool UK has recommended Amazon and ITV. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. Motley Fool UK 2025 Sign in to access your portfolio
Newsweek
38 minutes ago
- Newsweek
'Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' Has a Big Difference From Other Reality TV
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is filled with a lot of the same elements that make other reality shows popular, except for one major difference. For the most part, the women on the show don't drink alcohol. "I think that's what makes the show even crazier," Taylor Frankie Paul told Newsweek. "We're kind of crazy, but we're sober, so it makes it that much crazier if you think about it." Reality television shows often put groups of people, whether it's friends or strangers, together to party and hang out while drinking to fuel emotions and some drama. And, for decades, it's been a winning formula for high ratings for reality television shows, although it's come with its own set of problems in the form of lawsuits alleging the shows push alcohol on cast members and put them in harmful situations. Paul has had her own problems with alcohol and was ordered to undergo a substance abuse evaluation after she was arrested for domestic violence in 2023. While Paul wouldn't necessarily categorize the cast as a "good example" for people given their own craziness, she said she is the perfect example of someone who thought they needed alcohol to have fun and learned it's actually not necessary. "I just felt like socially for me, it was like, I don't think it'll be that fun without it," Paul, who's been sober for several years, said. "It's a mind shift. Get out of the mindset that you need that. And it's been really good for me to have a group of girls that don't need it and we still have so much fun." Alcohol has been a staple of American life for decades and is an estimated $600 billion industry in the United States alone. But, Generation Z is charting a new path where alcohol consumption may be lower than their older counterparts. A Gallup survey from 2023 showed the share of people under the age of 35 who ever drink dropped 10 points to 62 percent from 72 percent in 2001 to 2003. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Disney+/Canva It's given rise to the "sober curious" lifestyle trend, and the low or no-alcohol beverage industry is expected to grow by 25 percent between 2022 and 2026, according to IWSR, a drinks market analysis firm. Given how central alcohol is to so many reality shows, Paul said Secret Lives of Mormon Wives offers an alternative for viewers and bucks the narrative that you need alcohol to have fun. The cast has parties at their houses, and they even traveled to Las Vegas for a girls' weekend. While the cast admitted it might not seem like the most natural place for a group of Mormon women to visit, they spent time at clubs and casinos. They even acknowledged that just because they don't drink, it doesn't mean they don't love to dance, just like any other 20- or 30-something woman. "I think it's awesome to showcase that you can go out and have fun without alcohol involved," Paul said. Secret Lives of Mormon Wives broke records for Hulu and has left fans absolutely clamoring for new episodes. Along with sobriety, the show tackles a host of issues, including infertility, religion, divorce and co-parenting, and the changing role of women in traditional cultures. That openness is why Paul thinks the show has become so popular. Given the different paths the women take and the parts of their lives that they share, there's likely at least one thing that everyone who watches the show can relate to or sympathize with. "The Housewives, obviously, are a little older or there's Teen Mom where they're young, but we're kind of smack in the middle where we're young moms, either single, divorced or married, in the church or not. It's just everything," Paul said. "I think it just resonates with a huge crowd."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Alf Clausen, Emmy-Winning Composer for ‘The Simpsons,' Dies at 84
Alf Clausen, the veteran composer with two Emmy wins and 30 nominations whose whimsical scores brightened such television series as The Simpsons, Moonlighting and, purely coincidentally, ALF, has died. He was 84. Clausen died Thursday at his Valley Village home in Los Angeles, his daughter, Kaarin Clausen, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy about eight years ago, she said. More from The Hollywood Reporter Loretta Swit, Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on 'M*A*S*H,' Dies at 87 Mike Sumler, Kool & the Gang Hype Man, Dies at 71 Ena Hartman, 'Dan August' and 'Terminal Island' Actress, Dies at 93 From The Simpsons' second season in 1990 until its 28th in 2017, Clausen crafted many of the spirited melodies that contributed to the cutting-edge lunacy of the Fox animated show. From 23 Emmy nominations, he — along with lyricist Ken Keeler — won in 1997 and '98 for the songs 'We Put the Spring in Springfield' and 'You're Checkin' In (A Musical Tribute to the Betty Ford Center).' His harmonious relationship with the show would not last, however, with Clausen filing a lawsuit against Disney and Fox in August 2019 after he was dismissed from The Simpsons. Clausen's breakthrough as a TV composer came in 1985 on the ABC series Moonlighting. Back then, he had spent years doing a little bit of everything, from music directing and orchestrating to creating additional music for film and television projects. Lee Holdridge, who wrote the music for the Moonlighting theme song performed by Al Jarreau, asked series creator Glenn Gordon Caron to employ Clausen. Caron did so, but to hedge his bets, he hired another composer to alternate episodes with Clausen. By the fourth show, the other composer was let go and Clausen ended up scoring the series throughout its five-season run. Moonlighting's innovative structure provided a range of challenges for Clausen. The 1985 episode 'The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice' offered film noir flashbacks (filmed in black and white) set in a 1940s nightclub, with Cybill Shepherd, backed by a big band, singing a sultry torch song as co-star Bruce Willis played trumpet. The next year's 'Atomic Shakespeare' served up a music-filled parody of The Taming of the Shrew in medieval times. Clausen received Emmy noms for those episodes, then landed two more in 1988 and '89. Meanwhile, Clausen also took on composing duties for ALF. He provided the theme song and scored the 100-plus episodes of the quirky 1986-90 NBC sitcom about a joke-cracking, alien life form (ALF) portrayed as a shaggy puppet. (Asked if ALF was named after him, Clausen's standard reply was, 'No, but I granted them the rights to use my face as a likeness!) Clausen originally resisted The Simpsons' gig when it was first offered in 1990. The show, which had just concluded its first season (its opening theme was written by Danny Elfman), seemed too light-heartedly compared to what he had done the past five years. 'I was posed the question, 'Would you like to score an animated show?' and I said, 'No,'' Clausen recalled during a 2015 conversation for the Television Academy Foundation website The Interviews. 'I said, 'I just got off of four years of Moonlighting, and I really want to be a drama composer. I'm more interested in doing longform feature films.'' But series creator Matt Groening convinced Clausen that The Simpsons was just what he was looking for. 'We look on our show as being, not a cartoon, we look upon it as a drama where the characters are drawn,' Groening told Clausen. 'And we would like it scored that way. Could you do that?' And I said, 'Yeah, I could do that.'' Groening wanted the music to always reflect the emotion of the characters, not the action on the screen. 'He said he didn't want it scored like a typical Warner Bros. cartoon. He didn't want it scored like a typical Disney cartoon,' Clausen said. 'He wanted something different.' Clausen's first assignment was the 1990 episode 'Treehouse of Horror.' He said he was delighted that it presented the opportunity for 42 musical cues and that the producers didn't flinch when he requested a double recording session to generate them. He kept The Simpsons humming for 550-plus episodes and scored using a live, full orchestra. Among the many memorable ditties he wrote along the way were 'Vote for a Winner,' 'See My Vest,' 'Always My Dad,' 'Ode to Branson' and 'Union Strike Folk Song (Parts 1 and 2).' 'The Garbage Man,' a parody of 'The Candy Man' that he wrote for a 1998 episode, was performed by none other than U2. In a 2012 interview, Clausen remembered that with all the legal, production and publicity people from the show, the studio and the band, there must have been about 50 folks in the booth during the recording session. 'We did the first take of the song and Bono did a really good job of it, but there were a couple things I knew could be better,' Clausen said. 'He and I got along really well, we bonded from the moment we met. So when he finished the first take, I got on the talkback to him out in the studio and said, 'Boy, that was really good. But, you know, I think you can do a better one.' 'And I hear 50 people behind me collectively gasp! They couldn't believe I was telling Bono that he could record a better take. But he and I were used to being in the recording studio and accustomed to the process involved in doing recordings. We understood we were there to get the best take, and he was fine with it.' Alf Heiberg Clausen was born in Minneapolis on March 28, 1941. His mother, Magdalene, was on a weekend break from her master's studies at Iowa State University and shopping in a department store when she went into labor. He lived in Ames, Iowa, until his mom earned her degree, at which point the family relocated to Jamestown, North Dakota. His dad, also named Alf, was an occupational therapist for the city's mental hospital. His mom worked for Stutsman County helping residents deal with laws governing homeownership. Clausen grew up loving toy trains, cars and music. He took piano lessons at an early age, and two of his favorite activities were listening to his parents' orchestral record collection on their Victrola and watching American Bandstand on the family's new TV set. In the seventh grade, he was assigned the French horn, which became his instrument of choice through high school. At North Dakota State University, Clausen pursued a mechanical engineering degree but changed his major to music after he spent a summer with a musician cousin in New York and experienced My Fair Lady, West Side Story and The Music Man on Broadway and concerts featuring the likes of Miles Davis. While working toward his master's at the University of Wisconsin, Clausen enrolled in a correspondence course at Boston's Berklee College of Music to study arranging and composition. He found he enjoyed creating music more than playing it and moved to Boston to study full-time at Berklee. Eventually, he also taught there. Clausen headed to Los Angeles in 1967, played professionally around town and supplemented his income as a music copyist on Planet of the Apes (1968), M*A*S*H (1970), The Carol Burnett Show and The Partridge Family. In 1976, a colleague helped him get his foot in the door as an arranger for ABC's Donny & Marie, and he was promoted to musical director for the show's third season. He then became the musical director for another variety show, 1979's The Mary Tyler Moore Hour. As his reputation grew, Clausen spent the next several years orchestrating and composing for features including Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Splash (1984), Weird Science (1985), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) and Dragnet (1987) and scored episodes of Fame, Wizards and Warriors and Partners in Crime. Clausen's long association with The Simpsons ended on a sour note when it was announced in 2017 that he was being let go. Bleeding Fingers Music, a composer collective co-owned by Hans Zimmer, replaced him; the move cut the show's music budget by 40 percent as live orchestrations were supplanted by synthesized music. The five-time Annie Award winner sued Disney and its Fox divisions, claiming age discrimination while attacking Zimmer's company for creating Simpsons music 'inferior in quality, depth, range and sound, yet stylistically similar in substance.' He amended his suit in April 2020 to assert he also was fired because of a perceived disability, PSP. Fox and Simpsons executives countered, saying they were disappointed with Clausen's work on a 2017 hip-hop-themed episode, 'The Great Phatsby,' citing his unfamiliarity with newer forms of music and a concern that the show could lose its relevance. A judge dismissed the age discrimination claim but allowed Clausen to pursue other portions of the suit, including wrongful discharge, retaliation and unfair business practices. However, he settled in February 2022. In addition to his daughter, survivors also include his wife, Sally, whom he married in 1993; former wife Judy; two sons, Kyle and Scott; stepchildren Joshua and Emily; his sister, Faye; 11 grandchildren; and a niece and nephew. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
