Months of Hollywood whisper campaigns have finally solidified into fact: Ana de Armas, fresh off head-lining the John Wick spin-off Ballerina and still fondly remembered for No Time to Die and Knives Out, will co-star with Tom Cruise in the long-gestating undersea thriller Deeper. Deadline confirmed the deal late Tuesday night, ending a swirl of rumors that intensified after paparazzi photos caught Cruise and de Armas chatting at multiple awards-season events earlier this year. Although tabloid speculation quickly turned those encounters into dating buzz, insiders now reveal the pair were simply discussing dive schedules and decompression protocols for a project that has quietly been on Cruise’s radar for nearly a decade.
The official synopsis remains locked in a watertight safe, but sources say the film centers on a former astronaut—played by Cruise—who agrees to pilot an experimental submersible into an unexplored ocean trench. What begins as a routine scientific mission becomes a descent into cosmic horror after an “impossible” entity makes contact in the lightless depths. De Armas will portray a marine biologist and mission specialist who joins the dive; her character’s survival may depend on whether Cruise’s haunted explorer can confront literal demons and psychological trauma hundreds of miles from the nearest surface ship.
Veteran action stylist Doug Liman (who previously guided Cruise through the alien time-loops of Edge of Tomorrow and the drug-smuggling hijinks of American Made) is attached to direct. Liman, an avid free-diver himself, has reportedly insisted on capturing as many scenes as possible with practical water work rather than green-screen tanks. That mandate has already sent Cruise and de Armas into intensive training at a naval dive facility in Key West, where they’re learning closed-circuit rebreather systems and emergency buddy-breath maneuvers. Set photos show the 61-year-old Cruise nailing static breath-holds close to six minutes, while de Armas practices zero-visibility navigation using tactile guidelines.
Deeper originated as a 2016 spec script by Max Landis, purchased by MGM for a reported seven-figure sum. However, Cruise has since tapped his most trusted collaborator, Christopher McQuarrie, to overhaul the screenplay. Observers expect the new draft to lean into metaphysical suspense, merging The Abyss–style claustrophobia with the trippy existential stakes of Interstellar. Budget, unsurprisingly, is, well, deep: insiders peg the figure around $200 million. That price tag led Warner Bros. to step away earlier this spring, prompting Cruise and McQuarrie to shop the package around town. Multiple studios and streamers remain in the mix, though Universal—home to both Top Gun: Maverick’s global rollout and Liman’s Bourne roots—is rumored to be a front-runner.
Timing could work in the project’s favor. Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is tracking for a five-day Memorial Day launch north of $70 million domestic, while de Armas’s Ballerina is projected to open two weeks later at roughly $40 million. If those numbers hold, financiers may view Deeper as a high-risk, high-reward play anchored by two of the summer’s hottest box-office draws. Industry chatter suggests a 2025 shoot on soundstages in the U.K. and location work off Malta, with extensive LED-volume tech used to extend underwater vistas.
The new film won’t interrupt Cruise’s other passion project: the as-yet-untitled outer-space adventure he’s developing alongside NASA and SpaceX, which remains on the launchpad for late-decade production. Nevertheless, word is that Cruise wants to conquer the oceanic frontier before blasting into orbit. First, though, the actor will shift gears to finish an untitled drama from four-time Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu. That ensemble—which shot for six months and wrapped on May 3—co-stars Sandra Hüller, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, and Riz Ahmed, among others. Universal recently dated the Iñárritu film for October 2, 2026, filling the slot vacated by The Batman Part II.
With distribution negotiations under way, a finalized shooting schedule likely hinges on locking a studio partner in the coming weeks. But the pieces are falling into place: Cruise, Liman, McQuarrie, and now de Armas—each adept at blending human vulnerability with pulse-pounding set pieces. If all parties sign off, Deeper could send audiences on the most harrowing dive since James Cameron explored the Challenger Deep—and perhaps reveal that the scariest monsters aren’t the ones lurking in outer space but the ones waiting for us in the abyss below.