'Edge Of Tomorrow 2' Director Promises 'Amazing New Direction'

Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman has big plans for the sequel—but don't expect an Edge of Tomorrow 3.

Liman hinted at the "amazing new direction" that's been mapped out for Edge's upcoming follow-up, the cheekily titled Live Die Repeat and Repeat, during a recent visit to the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via Collider). Promising filmgoers will understand what he meant when he called it a "sequel that's a prequel," he added that he intends to take a character-driven approach, resisting the traditional sequel impulse to ramp up the action.

"You did the first film as sort of the ad campaign for the sequel, so now you don't need as much action," Liman argued. "We can do way more focus on Tom's character and Emily Blunt's character, and there's a third character in the sequel that's gonna for sure steal the movie. We can focus on that. I don't need an action sequence every two minutes."

As Liman noted, while Edge of Tomorrow certainly has no shortage of action, there's a funny story that ties it all together while subverting blockbuster clichés—Tom Cruise's character, a military PR officer dragooned into fighting a war against a seemingly unstoppable alien army, is trained for battle by a badass special ops vet played by Emily Blunt—and ends up being splattered to bits again and again, resurrected via a timeloop he's been trapped in since absorbing alien blood.

Although it's obviously blessed with a mythology that's a bit richer than your average shoot-'em-up, Liman doesn't intend for the Edge movies to launch an ongoing franchise; as he sees it, the sequel will serve as "the completion of the story" that started in the first installment. "Remember, at the end of the first movie, she doesn't know who he is," he pointed out. "And that's gonna launch us into an amazing new direction."

While we wait for further word on a release date for Live Die Repeat and Repeat, familiarize yourself with a whole bunch of the other sequels Hollywood's got planned for the next few years.