Screenwriter Erik Jendresen has confirmed that the script for Tom Cruise's long-mooted R-rated film with director Christopher McQuarrie, nicknamed "The Gnarly Movie", has now been completed. The update, shared exclusively with Collider at the Televerse festival, marks the first concrete progress on a project that has intrigued fans since it was first mentioned in 2023, offering a potential change of pace for Cruise away from his usual big-budget action fare.

Jendresen told Collider that "the script is finished, and it's sitting there," describing it as groundwork now laid before Cruise, though he stressed there was no further update to share yet. The project was first revealed by McQuarrie in a 2023 Empire interview during Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning promotion, when he described it only as "that movie that they're all asking for, and that we want to do." No plot details, cast beyond Cruise, or release timeline have been disclosed.