Doug Liman Says 'Edge Of Tomorrow 2' Will Be A Sequel And Prequel, Will "Revolutionize How People Make Sequels"

UPDATE: In a separate interview, Doug Liman elaborated that Edge of Tomorrow 2 will function as a sequel and a prequel to the first film. The article has been updated to reflect this.Edge of Tomorrow is one of the most fun and inventive science fiction films of the past decade, a clever and exciting and genuinely hilarious time travel action movie that makes all-time-great use of Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. I will never forgive you (yes, you) for not seeing it in theaters. But I will forgive you for seeing the sequel that is miraculously in the works, even though the original wasn't quite the box office juggernaut it deserved to be.

While we still don't know much about what to expect from the sequel (writers were hired back in April), director Doug Liman is already promising a movie that will revolutionize how people make sequels.

He literally said that. In an interview with IGN. Here's the quote:

Yeah, it's going to revolutionize how people make sequels. It really will.

When asked to expand on this statement, Liman refused, but doubled down on the how "revolutionize how people make sequels" thing:

I can't, but it will. You mark my words.

Look, I kind of adore Doug Liman. He's made good movies and he's made bad movies, but I'm always interested in what he's doing behind the camera. The special features on the Edge of Tomorrow Blu-ray showcase a director who is at his best when surrounded by a whirlwind of absolute chaos – he's my kind of mad man. Also, I can't help but find this kind of braggadocio charming. Sure, a director could hide behind a veil of humility or he can go around expressing the kind of confidence (arrogance?) that is a key component of every artist's personality. The latter has become more refreshing at this point.

In any case, the time-traveling aspect of Edge of Tomorrow certainly means that that possibilities for a sequel are endless. In a separate interview with Collider, Liman explained that Edge of Tomorrow will function as a sequel and a prequel to the original film:

That is the only sequel that I'm considering doing, and it's because first of all the story is so amazing—much better than the original film, and I loved and loved the original film—and second of all, it's a sequel that's a prequel.

While that's certainly an intriguing concept, a sequel that is also a prequel isn't a revolutionary concept by itself. The Godfather Part II says hello, as does Back to the Future Part II, which used time travel to revisit the events of the first film. In any case, I'm on board with whatever Liman has up his sleeve.

Liman also spoke with IGN about Justice League Dark (otherwise known as Dark Universe), the superhero movie starring the DC universe's weirder and more monstrous creations like John Constantine and Swamp Thing. Prepare yourself for maximum Doug Liman-inity:

It's like how do you fundamentally reinvent what people are doing? And that's the good and the bad news of this sort of box I've been put in. I mean, you'd think it was by design, but it wasn't. It is exactly what I should be doing, but I'm just so grateful that – you know sometimes I'm working on a project and I pitch an idea that's too conventional, and the producers will say back to me "That's not Doug Liman enough." Which is like a weird thing, because I'm like "Well that – it was my idea! How can you say it's not me?" And they're like "No, because when we think of you, we think of like, you know – that just seems too ordinary."

Neither Justice League Dark or Edge of Tomorrow 2 have release dates.