FILM · 2014 · USA
Edge of Tomorrow
- Directed by
- Doug Liman
- Runtime
- 114 min
- Studio
- RatPac Entertainment, Village Roadshow Pictures, VIZ Media
116 archived facts 8 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
Major Bill Cage is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously demoted and dropped into combat. Cage is killed within minutes, managing to take an alpha alien down with him. He awakens back at the beginning of the same day and is forced to fight and die again... and again - as physical contact with the alien has thrown him into a time loop.
Summary: TMDB
88 Interesting Facts About Edge of Tomorrow
- #001
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When Hiroshi Sakurazaka wrote the novel, he took the idea from video games: resetting the game over and over until he found the winning strategy.
- #002
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While filming a car chase scene that also involved a minivan, Emily Blunt was instructed to drive fast and then turn right so the van would rock. Blunt missed her mark, however, and drove the car straight toward a tree. She later said it was both funny and terrifying, that she nearly killed Tom Cruise, who was sitting in the passenger seat, but that the two of them started laughing after the incident.
- #003
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It was never stated in the film, but in the manga the reason Rita uses a close-combat weapon is that during "resets" she frequently ran out of ammunition, which resulted in death. Keiji (in the manga) also learned the usefulness of a close-combat weapon and began using one.
- #005
Tom Cruise did not want the exo-suits to be too much CGI, so they would be more realistic for the audience. He came in two months early to research and develop the suit. He thought the weapons were fun and cool. Emily Blunt was unprepared for the suit weighing 85-90 pounds and the weapons weighing between 120-125 pounds.
- #006
Doug Liman wanted to make the film because it contained a role Tom Cruise had not yet played: someone very bad at his job.
- #009
Tom Cruise did all his own stunts; Doug Liman said he could build a magnificent career out of it.
- #010
It was adapted from Hiroshi Sakurazaka's manga and novel "All You Need Is Kill."
- #011
The film is set in the year 2020.
- #014
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Tom Cruise wanted Cage's deaths to be as horrifying as they were funny, and he drew comparisons to the 'Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner' cartoons, in which Cage is always comically injured in his many failed attempts to catch the latter.
- #015
Tom Cruise spent more than $100,000 on a lavish celebration party for the cast and crew. He did not attend because he had finished filming his scenes.
- #017
The producers described this project as a cross between Groundhog Day (1993) and Starship Troopers (1997).
- #018
Doing three film premieres in one day was Tom Cruise's idea; Emily Blunt said it was harder for a woman, because a woman needs a different dress, hairstyle and makeup for each one, while he only needed one suit.
- #019
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The film's opening sequence includes brief footage of the Chelyabinsk meteor event that took place in February 2013, along with other encrypted television images.
- #020
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In the original novel, the Mimics invade Tokyo. Rita is an American nicknamed "Full Metal Bitch," and Cage is a Japanese man named Keiji Kiriya, eventually nicknamed "Killer Cage."
- #021
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Cage never mentions how many times he has been reset throughout the film. Although Rita asks him several times, he never answers with a number. Rita once said she had watched Hendricks die 300 times; this is the only reference made to reset counts.
- #023
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The name the film gives to the planned invasion, Operation Downfall, was in fact a real planned invasion: the final invasion of the Japanese home islands intended to end World War II. Because the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to Japan's surrender, the real Operation Downfall never took place.
- #024
When Rita emerges from the hangar in her battle suit with the skeleton painted on it, a soldier shouts, "Look, it's the Full Metal B--" and Rita strikes him with her exoskeleton and forcibly drags him out of the way. The actor playing the soldier was Sebastian Blunt, Emily Blunt's younger brother.
- #025
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In the novel, the jackets weigh 370 kilograms, and there are 2,500 of them and a platoon of 146 people. The jackets give a soldier superhuman strength. In the novel, getting used to a jacket is difficult; it is compared to walking on eggshells without breaking any. Putting on a jacket takes about two minutes. The jackets read muscular electrical signals and each is custom-made. Wearing the wrong suit can break every bone in your body or leave you immobile. Before putting one on, you must pass 37 pre-checks, or eleven if you are in a hurry.
- #027
The film premiered in the US on June 6, 2014, the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of World War II. The film shares many similarities with the assault on the Normandy coast. Uniquely, it premiered in two consecutive events designed to mirror the D-Day landings within the exact timeline of the historical event. The premieres experienced a similar déjà vu in the weather, beginning around 6:00 a.m. GMT at an IMAX theater in London.
- #028
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During the opening title sequence, Cage gives a briefing about the upcoming Operation Downfall. The room behind him is the NORAD command center from the film WarGames (1983).
- #030
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Despite Tom Cruise appearing in every scene, he has no dialogue in the final six minutes of the film.
- #031
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In the manga, Rita never loses the reset ability and can feel when someone else changes time. At the end of the manga, Rita realizes she told Cage to kill her so that he would be the only one with the ability, since both of them being able to change time would mean the enemy would never be defeated. Rita dies and Cage continues to fight.
- #037
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The landscape and vistas seen at the "German dam" are actually from Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. The dam was added by CGI near the world-famous location, close to the renowned "Cerro de Aleta de Tiburon" (Shark Fin Mountain).
- #038
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In the manga book, Cage begins to suffer headaches many times over the course of the loop.
- #039
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Americans pronounced Keiji's name as Cage in the book, so his name was pronounced Cage in the film as well.
- #041
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The jacket's sound design is the same as that of the weapon used in Aliens (1986).
- #042
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The Alien Goo seen just before the first loop was made from Angel Delight (a classic British dessert), which Tom Cruise had never eaten before. He liked it so much that he ate it for the rest of the production and said he would now eat it every week.
- #043
Doug Liman liked the film because he had to reshoot the same scenes until he got them right.
- #044
The film's screenplay appeared on the 2010 Black List, a list of the year's "most liked" unproduced screenplays.
- #046
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The house where they rest is the same house as the one in Looper (2012), another Emily Blunt film.
- #047
It was filmed almost entirely at Leavesden Studios, where the "Harry Potter" films were shot.
- #048
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Reversal: during the escape from the trailer park, the American Cage tells Rita to open the caravan's (the British term for a trailer/caravan) hook. The British Rita then says she forgot to remove the trailer's hook (the term used for a caravan in America). This is actually quite natural: each uses the word the other would best understand.
- #049
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Only three characters from the original novel made it into the film: Cage, Rita and Farell, but all three were heavily changed from their original counterparts. Hendricks, a character Rita mentions, appears in the same position she mentions in the novel, that is, as her commander. However, he is never seen in the film, only spoken of.
- #050
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There was no logical reason for Rita and Cage to escape from General Brigham's office with the transponder, since the transponder could have been stuck into Cage while he was with the General. After seeing the location of the Omega, the day could have been reset without the risk of escaping the building.
- #052
It was Tom Cruise's first film (outside the "Mission: Impossible" films) to gross over $100 million domestically since War of the Worlds (2005).
- #054
While preparing for her role here, Emily Blunt trained in "Krav Maga," Israel's self-defense system.
- #055
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In the film, Rita says she has watched her friend Hendricks die three hundred times. In the novel, however, Hendricks died only in Rita's final loop, surviving all the previous ones, and showed her that even if she could win a battle, not everyone she tried to protect could survive.
- #056
The premiere was held in London, Paris and New York City on the same day; one of the premieres was at 5 a.m. and the weather was wet, which Doug Liman said was proof of Tom Cruise's star power. For the film's London gala, Cruise landed a helicopter in Trafalgar Square. Emily Blunt nicknamed Cruise "Chatty Cathy" at one of the galas. One of the exo suits was displayed at the film's French premiere.
- #057
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Although Rita is never sexualized in the film, earlier versions of the scripts contained scenes that explicitly did so. In a 2011 version written by Joby Harold, there was a full action scene in which Rita is out of her combat suit and almost completely naked, wearing only her underwear. Similar scenes appeared in earlier drafts, such as her taking a shower or bathing while hiding with Cage in an abandoned house before a Mimic attack.
- #058
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The sound of the mechanical training dummies in the training field was created by amplifying the sound of two people fencing.
- #060
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At the end of the film, just before Tom Cruise's character destroys the Omega, there is a scene in which he opens his hand to reveal multiple grenade pins, preparing the audience for the coming explosion. The scene resembles the one in War of the Worlds (2005) in which Cruise's character is nearly sucked into the alien machine but is pulled out by other people. In this scene he also reveals numerous grenade pins, indicating that several grenades will explode inside the machine seconds later.
- #061
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In one of the news segments at the start of the film, Tom Cruise is shown superimposed in a control room with multiple screens. This background is recycled footage from WarGames (1983).
- #062
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When Cage is first introduced, Gary Clark Jr.'s "Bright Lights Big City" plays in the background of the barracks. The lyric "… you're gonna know my name by the end of the night" works like a foreshadowing. Note also that the song does not appear in later repetitions of the barracks scenes.
- #063
Hiroshi Sakurazaka thought the novel was a dark story in which characters die left and right, but he was still very pleased with it. While writing it, he had to get military input. In 2004 he published All You Need Is Kill with Super Dash Bunko, a popular Young Adult light novel series, and it earned his first Seiun Award nomination for Best of the Year in the Japanese science fiction category. The novel was the launch title of Haikasoru in 2009, a unique publisher dedicated to publishing the most compelling contemporary Japanese science fiction and fantasy books for English-speaking readers; it is one of its most popular novels.
- #064
While promoting the film, a story emerged that Emily Blunt had "broken" Tom Cruise's spirit during the shoot. Blunt clarified the matter in an interview, describing a particularly hard day when she, Cruise and the rest of the cast hung around in their exo suits for a while and Cruise was determined to start shooting. Blunt said that while she told Cruise "this sucks," Cruise replied calmly but just as eagerly with "it's a challenge."
- #065
Filming began while the script was still going through multiple revisions.
- #066
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Cage admits he doesn't know much about Kuntz because "he doesn't talk much." In addition to the character's quiet nature, he never shares a fight scene with Cage because he keeps dying in the drop ship before every battle, including the final battle at the Louvre.
- #067
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In the book, Cage would not have met Rita if he had not stayed inside the loop, but in the film he meets Rita on the battlefield before the loop.
- #068
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Both this film and Groundhog Day (1993) feature a character named Rita, and both deal with time loops. In that film, Bill Murray also presses Andie MacDowell to prove that tomorrow has finally come. In the novel, Cage pinches himself when time first resets. Also, in the book everything new horrifies Cage, whereas Bill Murray reacted in the opposite way.
- #069
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The action that continues after the truck Cage passes under runs over him may suggest that each death creates a new timeline. More likely, Cage was not killed instantly, and we therefore see the other characters react to his wounds before he dies and resets the day. If every death created a new timeline, there would be numerous realities in which Rita is tried for cold-bloodedly killing a fellow soldier in the training simulator. However, Bill Paxton's character says "what the hell were you thinking son?" after Tom Cruise is crushed. This may mean that Tom survives for a few seconds after the truck runs over him.
- #071
It was Emily Blunt's first action film. Tom Cruise felt he had been conned because he was dragged into the deepest part of the work. Blunt had never made a film of this size before but felt she met all of its excitement.
- #073
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In the first invasion scene, within about 17-20 minutes, three different types of landing craft are clearly visible: short but relatively wide ones, the LCAC hovercraft used by most US amphibious ships; somewhat longer and much narrower ones, the LCU MK10 units used by the United Kingdom's Albion-class LPDs; and much larger ones with three big fans on top, the Russian Zubrs, also the largest hovercraft in the world.
- #074
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In the scenes shot in Trafalgar Square, the Fourth Plinth features Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset's bronze sculpture "Powerless Structures, Figure 101," a boy on a rocking horse. The artwork on the Fourth Plinth is changed periodically, and this sculpture remained on the plinth from February 2012 to April 2013.
- #075
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In the film, Rita mentions that her middle name is "Rose," meaning her name in the film is actually "Rita Vrataski." In the novels, however, this is an identity she stole so she could imitate the age required to enlist. Her real name is never revealed in the novel.
- #076
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In the book, Cage and Rita's relationship does not deepen until the 160th loop.
- #077
Emily Blunt asks Tom Cruise whether he is afraid of flying, and he says he is not afraid of flying but of crashing. Cruise had the same conversation with Kevin Pollak in A Few Good Men (1992). In real life, he is actually a good pilot.
- #080
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In the book, after all the loops, Rita feels like Cage's friend, but to Cage she is a stranger.
- #081
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At the start of the film, Cage wears the "service alpha" uniform of a US Navy officer. The jacket collar bears UDF insignia, and his cap has the Navy eagle globe and anchor emblems. He later tells Master Sergeant Farell that he is a US Army spokesman.
- #082
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Cage rides a Triumph Thruxton in the city. The bike takes its name from the British racetrack and was designed in the Café Racer style, fitting the film's location.
- #083
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In the flyover scene at Heathrow Airport, the large building in the distance is Heathrow Terminal 5, used by British Airways and Iberia and the largest freestanding building in the United Kingdom.
- #085
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In the book, Rita goes through the time loop about 300 times, similar to the film.
- #086
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Noah Taylor appeared in another Tom Cruise film, Vanilla Sky (2001). In both films he plays a technical support role.
- #087
Hiroshi Sakurazaka is also the author of Characters and Slum Online, published in English in 2010. He remains one of Japan's most energetic writers in the field of light novels and adult science fiction.
- #088
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In the book, Rita cries when she learns that Cage is a loop-maker, but in the film he is not.
- #089
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In the repeated beach invasion scenes, the most visible aircraft is the fictional Quad VTOL. Among the other aircraft and landing vehicles, however, are the Eurocopter Tiger, Boeing CH-47 Chinook, Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, Textron USN LCAC craft, British LCU Mk.10 and the Zubr class (Project 1232.2, NATO reporting name "Pomornik").
- #090
This is Tom Cruise's second collaboration with Brendan Gleeson; the first was Mission: Impossible II (2000). He also starred alongside Brendan's son Domhnall Gleeson in American Made (2017), also directed by Doug Liman.
- #091
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The first news clip, which stays silent for less than a second after the Village Roadshow Pictures logo, belongs to Israel's Channel 2 News studio. The text reads: "Global Danger."
- #092
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Cage tells Farell that he is originally from Cranbury, New Jersey, which is a few miles from where co-writer Christopher McQuarrie grew up.
- #093
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There is a deleted scene in which Cage tells Rita that if she transfers his power to herself, she can get back the abilities that reset time. When he says this might be possible through sex, she replies, "Doesn't work, I've already tried it," but then refuses to answer how many times she tried it.
- #094
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In the film, Cage tells Rita that she is in a time loop; in the book, he asks her about it over his headset during battle.
- #096
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Although she never says so outright, Rita uses an axe in the book because weapons can malfunction and ammunition can run out in battle.
- #097
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In the book, Farell's love of training is limited by serious mental illnesses.
- #098
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The close-combat weapon Rita uses (a sword) is not from the aircraft used to drop soldiers during Operation Downfall. It may have been modeled on a different aircraft made for the film but not existing in real life. Bell Boeing normally labels aircraft panels and items that are frequently removed during maintenance to make reassembly easier, which means "POS 53" could be the position of the blade on the aircraft. The painted serial number does not correspond to any existing aircraft or its components. The manufacturing or Weight and Balance plate says UDF (United Defense Force), the army's name, whereas normal blades would carry the name of the manufacturer rather than the army using them. Any tail or main rotor blade produced in 2014 or earlier would make a terrible weapon and would be destroyed the first time it hit something.
- #099
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The dusty old car was a Citroen CX.
- #100
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In the Japanese manga, the last place without aliens was Japan's Fuso Peninsula.
- #103
Tom Cruise felt this was a very ambitious film that takes you on an extremely entertaining journey.
- #104
During softball practice in A Few Good Men (1992), Tom Cruise half-seriously suggests to a man he is practicing with that he "keep his eyes open." In this film, during training against the Mimics, Emily Blunt says the same thing to Tom Cruise in the same tone.
- #106
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Cage is younger in the book but as short as Tom Cruise.
- #107
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In the escape from the trailer park scene, Cage instructs Rita to steal a minivan and be ready to get out quickly from the alien Mimics. This recalls how Ray (Tom Cruise) steals a minivan in War of the Worlds (2005) to save his family from the alien invasion.
- #108
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When the transport vehicle crashes into the glass pyramid in Paris, this is the main entrance of the Louvre museum, located in the city's 1st arrondissement on the right bank of the Seine.
- #109
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After Rita and Cage separate, the first dusty car in the final action scene is an Alfa Romeo 147. The second car, which Rita uses as cover, is a Fiat Stilo.
- #110
Tom Cruise said he made the film for the audience.
- #111
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The gray minivan Rita and Cage use (the one towing the trailer) is a Renault Espace.
- #112
Tom Cruise and Noah Taylor had worked together 13 years earlier on Vanilla Sky (2001).
- #113
The film's Manhattan premiere was at midnight.
- #114
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The message Cage (Tom Cruise) sees on the side of Rita's (Emily Blunt) bus each time he wakes up is "Full Metal Bitch."
- #115
The film marked Madeleine Mantock's debut.
- #116
The film received a "B+" CinemaScore.
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