Tom Cruise is the kind of movie star who always has multiple projects on his radar so that, at the drop of a hat, he can change directions and stay busy with blockbuster after blockbuster. He’s putting the finishing touches on Christopher McQuarrie’s One Shot, where he plays Jack Reacher in an anticipated adaptation of Lee Child’s novel. He was circling Horizons, and always remains a threat to kick start a fifth Mission: Impossible (thanks to the success of the most recent, Ghost Protocol).

But Doug Liman, in an interview with Collider, drops the bomb that his next project likely will be All You Need Is Kill, a science-fiction thriller with Cruise in the lead role of a soldier killed in battle while fighting aliens who keeps waking up and reliving the same tragic day over and over again. Liman says it’s a matter of clearing everyone’s schedules – and by that, he likely means Tom’s schedule – and that he hopes it will be the next project he mounts.

Liman, who recently helmed the ripped-from-the-headline political drama Fair Game with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, says he’s attracted to Kill because it’s unlike anything he has ever helmed. And that’s accurate. Aside from Swingers and Go, Liman tends to gravitate toward espionage thrillers like the first Bourne story or Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Kill would be a massive undertaking for him (at least, it sounds that way on paper). But who better to have in your corner on a sci-fi blockbuster than Cruise, who helped turn Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and Minority Reports into huge hits.