{"id":107902,"date":"2025-09-01T23:17:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T23:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/107902\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T23:17:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T23:17:06","slug":"doug-liman-talks-xr-thriller-asteroid-tom-cruise-space-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/107902\/","title":{"rendered":"Doug Liman Talks XR Thriller ‘Asteroid’, Tom Cruise Space Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tClose to 30 years have passed since Doug Liman<\/a>\u2019s breakout feature Swingers played in the Venice<\/a> Film Festival\u2019s now defunct Overtaking Lane sidebar devoted to emerging directors, having been rejected by Sundance.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow director was back on the Lido this year unveiling his XR thriller Asteroid<\/a>, which is among 30 works competing in Venice\u2019s Film Festival Immersive Competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tStarring Hailee Steinfeld, Rhenzy Feliz, DK Metcalf, Ron Perlman, Frieda Pinto and Leon Mande<\/a>l, the work revolves around a group of strangers who head to an asteroid in an old Russian Soyuz rocket on a risky mission to mine wealth beyond their wildest dreams. Only one of the space travelers will return to Earth.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is the latest work from 30 Ninjas, the immersive studio Liman created more than a decade ago with Julina Tatlock and Jed Weintrob using technological developments to expand the boundaries of storytelling.<\/p>\n

\n\tProduced by 30 Ninjas in association with Google<\/a>\u2019s 100 Zeros, Asteroid is among a slate of XR films being lined up for the launch this fall of Android XR, the new operating system, combining AI, AR and VR, being developed by Google and Samsung<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt 30 Ninjas, our mission has been to embrace new technology and storytelling. I have always been interested in movies that reflect the moment they\u2019re made \u2014 that can be through the content, but also, the technology,\u201d Liman told Deadline in Venice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m a huge fan of Jim Cameron because he\u2019s on the cutting edge. He\u2019s telling stories that couldn\u2019t have been told until that moment in time,\u201d he continued, adding that the work\u2019s unveiling in Venice had extra resonance for him. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m sitting here in Venice, not far from where I first premiered Swingers, which I was also able to make because of new technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWritten by and starring Jon Favreau, Swingers was a buddy comedy about a struggling comedian getting over heartache shot over the course of 18 days on a budget of just $250,000. It went onto gross $4.6 million at the U.S. box office.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBack then we shot movies on film, but there were new film stocks, and I thought, \u2018With these film stocks, I can shoot a movie without a crew and lights, and with the camera on my shoulder.\u2019 I was like, \u2018People have been shooting movies the same way for 100 years. I think given where film stocks have evolved to, I can change how you shoot a movie.\u2019 Swingers doesn\u2019t look like other movies, and I think it\u2019s a better movie for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRight from the beginning, my career has been intertwined with advances in technology and obviously with Asteroid, this is by far the most ambitious thing I\u2019ve ever done. It\u2019s a giant Hollywood movie idea told in a VR headset and that just hasn\u2019t existed before. The reason I\u2019m so proud of it, is it was so friggin\u2019 hard to make and why I now get why it hasn\u2019t existed before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Asteroid experience, tried out by Deadline in Venice, features a pre-chat with NFL player Metcalf generated by Gemini, Google\u2019s AI assistant; an immersive 180-degree, live-action short, and an\u00a0 interactive extension, also using Gemini technology, in which the viewer is given the opportunity to help solve what really happened on the perilously icy slopes of the asteroid.<\/p>\n

\t\tRogues in space\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 180-degree short immediately plunges the viewer into chaotic scenes inside the Russian Soyuz rocket as Metcalf\u2019s character has second thoughts and tries to quit the vessel via a hatch before it lifts off, with the story proceeding on the icy terrain of the asteroid, and then an interrogation room as one of the crew members is questioned on what went down on the trip. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSteinfeld emerges as an ambivalent figure whose true motives for her actions remain unclear. Mandel plays a former Russia astronaut, whose avarice gets the better of him, while Perlman\u2019s character is an older man struggling to cope with harsh terrain and sub-zero temperatures. Pinto plays as an official leading the investigation back on Earth.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAsteroids is a story I\u2019ve been wanting to tell for a long time \u2026 in my movies, I pride myself on my world building, and part of the world building is the visual spectacle but it\u2019s also about the characters,\u201d said Liman.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the way that The Bourne Identity changed how you looked at a spy movie, I\u2019ve been very interested in doing movies or stories told in outer space with characters who have no business in being there. Characters who look up at the moon and see money, not romance,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn Asteroid, five of them are cramming into a Soyuz capsule that\u2019s designed for three because they think there\u2019s a trillion dollars to be made on an asteroid that\u2019s passing near Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPerlman, who also made the trip to Venice alongside cast members Feliz, Metcalf and Mandel, said working on the XR thriller had been an revelatory experience.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI thought that I had done everything in show business until I saw this,\u201d\u201d said the veteran actor. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m gonna have to stick around for a little while longer to be able to say, been there, done that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSometimes it felt a little detached. but Doug knew exactly what he needed to do for the storytelling in this thing, including the fights with the gravity and conditions,\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Liman, Asteroid was one of most technically challenging films that he has ever shot.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe moment you say you\u2019re going to cram people in a teeny space and shoot that for a VR headset you\u2019re in for a world of hurt. Right from the beginning you\u2019re like, \u2018You can\u2019t do that, you can\u2019t get the camera that close to people,\u2019 but you have to be close because the space is claustrophobic when they\u2019re in the capsule.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTechnically how to film that was more ambitious than any filming I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d he continues, adding further challenges included capturing the impact of the different gravitational forces in the capsule and on the asteroid.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe world building of the asteroid, I loved. My production designer from Edge of Tomorrow (Oliver Scholl) designed the asteroid. Some of that is sort of conventional, but how you technically film for the headset and give the audience a Hollywood cinematic experience \u2026 it\u2019s more technology than I\u2019ve ever used in a movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t30 Ninjas co-partner Weintrob added: \u201cAll the stuff in the spaceship and on the asteroid is performance capture in the game engine Unreal, then touched up with VFX, which enabled us to get that close into the capsule and the characters, but also with a huge focus on performance fidelity of the actors. None of it\u2019s generated. It\u2019s all live performance capture. All the actors were scanned using Google\u2019s next generation top secret scanning stage. Then the stuff in the interrogation room is shot with a somewhat more traditional camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat\u2019s next \u2026 more episodes, a feature film?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tLiman and his 30 Ninja partners said it was too early to say whether there will be further instalments of Asteroid, or indeed a feature film spinning off the immersive experience. For now, the next focus is nailing down the extension element of the overall experience.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis started as a feature script which I cut down, or just one part of it, to create a short film. I haven\u2019t made a short film since film school. They\u2019re really hard. If you saw my film school short films, you would be like, \u2018Oh my God, these things are terrible.\u2019 I literally have never made a good short film until Asteroid\u2026 it\u2019s never too late,\u201d said Liman.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is a full story I want to tell of Asteroid that is feature length or longer and then part of the excitement of getting to do this with Google and with the Android XR headset is that I\u2019m hoping you want to know more. With The Bourne Identity, you wanted more, and you got four more movies,\u201d said Liman. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy goal is to create movies and experiences that people want more of\u2026 but I\u2019m also really excited about where it\u2019s going with the story extension,\u201d he continued. \u201cYou\u2019re just getting a little taste of it. The film is done, other than a few technical things that I noticed here, because it\u2019s really right off the press, but you only saw part of the story extension. My plan had been to do the short for Android as a launchpad to go make the feature. The reality is that the experience is so powerful in 180-degrees, that I\u2019ve set a very high bar for what I would hope to create on the big screen if I did it for Imax because as incredible as Imax is, it\u2019s hard \u00a0for it to compete with the experience you have watching on a headshot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA feature version of Asteroid remained an ambition, he continued but said no such had project had been greenlighted as yet.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe could end up making seven more instalments for the headset\u2026 I\u2019ve learned so much about storytelling on this\u2026 I was also planning to go shoot a movie in outer space with Tom Cruise<\/a> and the reality is the experience you have watching Asteroid on the Android XR is that you are so inside a Hollywood movie in a way I\u2019ve never experienced before,\u201d said Liman<\/p>\n

\n\tPressed on the outer space project with Cruise, first revealed by Deadline in 2020<\/a>, Liman said it remained on the cards, but there were no updates.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve just finished this [Asteroid] so I\u2019m now processing what next and what I learned, part of it will be how the audience reacts to it. You\u2019d rather I give you more concrete answers but you\u2019re getting me totally raw\u2026 I don\u2019t know where it leaves me. I know I want to do more in space\u2026 I am more excited about this idea of characters who have no business of going into space after making this. In the way, I was excited after The Bourne Identity, \u201c said Liman.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy movies are all anti-heroes. Tom Cruise is a coward in Edge of Tomorrow; he\u2019s a full on criminal in American Made; Matt Damon kills people for a living in The Bourne Identity; and Brad and Angie both kill people for a living [Mr. and Mrs. Smith]. I\u2019m interested in like my kinds of characters going into space and I love that in Asteroid, we got to cram five of them into this teeny second-hand capsule.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLiman added that shooting a film in outer space remained on his bucket list but that nothing was scheduled as yet, with both he and Cruise tied up in other projects. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m more excited about going to space, not less \u2026 but our goal is too make something great. A lot of people are trying to do gimmicky things like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s in space.\u2019 I\u2019m not interested in doing something that\u2019s a just promotional gimmick. I want to make a film that people watch in a hundred years when maybe there\u2019s hundreds of movies shot in outer space and there\u2019s nothing special about it being in outer space. That\u2019s the goal of everything I do. With Swingers, it\u2019s very meaningful to me that lots of people who watch it weren\u2019t even born when it premiered here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf I ever shoot a movie in outer space, the question will be what could I do that you couldn\u2019t do on Earth that makes for a great piece of entertainment, that\u2019s better than if you didn\u2019t do it it space. Again, its also about technology and storytelling\u2026 you can run a line from Swingers all the way through to this potential film in outer space.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Close to 30 years have passed since Doug Liman\u2019s breakout feature Swingers played in the Venice Film Festival\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[19126,6491,52381,96,844,52382,1560,17293,56,54,55,10989,10306,52383],"class_list":["post-107902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-asteroid","tag-celebrities","tag-doug-liman","tag-entertainment","tag-google","tag-ron-perlman","tag-samsung","tag-tom-cruise","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-venice","tag-venice-film-festival","tag-venice-immersive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}