NASA, Elon Musk, Tom Cruise plan movie on International Space Station

Hollywood loves a good space movie but Tom Cruise is reportedly set to go one step further, teaming up with NASA on a new film.

The USA’s space agency has confirmed it is working on a movie with Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise to be shot on the International Space Station.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine confirmed the plans in a tweet early Wednesday morning.

NASA is excited to work with @TomCruise on a film aboard the @Space_Station! We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make @NASA’s ambitious plans a reality. pic.twitter.com/CaPwfXtfUv

— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) May 5, 2020

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As well as inspiring a new generation of NASA workers, the plan is another step in a commercialisation plan the agency has been working on in recent years.

The goal is to make space exploration more sustainable by not relying solely on government funds and working with private companies.

In 2018, Mr Bridenstine announced a committee would investigate how the agency could work with advertisers to offset the cost of NASA missions.

NASA recently announced it will work with space exploration companies Blue Origin and SpaceX, started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla founder Elon Musk respectively.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, and NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir recently returned from the space station to an Earth ravaged by coronavirus in their absence. Picture: Andrey Shelepin / GCTC / Russian Space Agency Roscosmos / AFP

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SpaceX will reportedly be part of the plans for the Tom Cruise movie as well, but it’s not yet known in what capacity.

A report of the plan first surfaced in the Hollywood news outlet Deadline, before being confirmed by Mr Bridenstine.

It’s yet to be revealed if any major studio is attached to the project at this stage, with Deadline only saying the film will not be part of the Mission: Impossible franchise helmed by Cruise.

His production company TC Productions will likely play a part.

In 2017 TC Productions was linked to a film called Luna Park, an action-adventure-sci-fi project whose script appears to have been doing the circuit in Hollywood for the better part of a decade, according to IMDb.

The plot of the film is described as “a group of renegade space workers venture to the moon to steal an energy source”.

Cruise is known for going to great lengths to perform his own stunts when he can, famously scaling the world’s tallest building, boarding a cargo plane as it takes off, and jumping out of a different plane about 7,600 metres off the ground to film various set pieces in the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Tom Cruise sitting atop the Burj Khalifa, after climbing the 828 metre skyscraper to film a stunt for one of his movies.

A scene from 2002’s Space Station 3D IMAX documentary.

If it goes ahead the film would be the first narrative film to be shot in space.

An IMAX 3D documentary titled Space Station 3D was previously shot by crew aboard the International Space Station and grossed more than $US128 million ($A199 million) worldwide following its 2002 release.

The documentary was narrated by Tom Cruise.