Whether you think of him as a cocktail-slinging flair bartender, a hotshot fighter pilot, or a highly trained secret agent, there’s no question that Tom Cruise is one of the biggest movie stars the entertainment industry has ever seen. Heck, his new sci-fi blockbuster, Oblivion, has already made over $61 million, and it hasn’t even opened in the United States yet. So, seeing as movie producers like to make money, and movie audiences seem to like watching Cruise doing sci-fi action stuff, everyone has decided that the next logical step is to have the veteran actor star in another sci-fi action film, this one called Yukikaze.
If that title sounds Japanese to you, that’s because it is. The scoop of Cruise’s casting comes from Deadline, who reports that Universal is putting together this adaptation of Japanese author Chohei Kambayashi’s modern classic science fiction novel of the same name. Not only is this project notable because of the respect that Kambayashi’s work gets in the science fiction community, but also because it combines two of the subjects that Cruise has historically tackled very successfully: piloting aircraft and dealing with alien invasions.
The Amazon description of Kambayashi’s novel describes it by saying:
More than thirty years ago, a hyper-dimensional passageway suddenly appeared over the continent of Antarctica. Fighters from the mysterious alien force known as the JAM poured through the passage, the first wave an attempted terrestrial invasion. Their ferocity was unquestionable, their aim unknown. Humanity, united by a common enemy, managed to repel the invaders, chasing them back through the passageway to the strange planet nicknamed ‘Fairy.’
The task of finishing the battle was given to the newly formed FAF, a combat force created to go to Fairy and eliminate the JAM bases once and for all. Now, in the midst of a war with no end in sight, Second Lieutenant Rei Fukai carries out his missions in the skies over Fairy. Attached to Tactical Combat and Surveillance Unit 3 of the Special Air Force, his duty is to gather information on the enemy and bring it back to base—no matter the human cost. His only constant companion in this lonely task is his fighter plane, the sentient FFR-31 Super Sylph, call sign: Yukikaze.”
I know what you’re feeling, because I’m feeling it too. It’s the need—the need for speed—and also the need to watch Cruise knock those lousy thetans into next week. Hopefully this one is able to snag a script and a director soon.