Tom Cruise to shoot movie aboard International Space Station

Tom Cruise will shoot his space movie aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

On Tuesday, editors at Deadline reported that the Mission: Impossible actor was teaming up with Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX and officials at America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to make the first-ever feature film to be shot in outer space.

NASA confirmed the news later that day, with NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine revealing that the movie, or at least part of it, will be filmed on the ISS.

"NASA is excited to work with @TomCruise on a film aboard the @Space_Station," Bridenstine tweeted. "We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make @NASA's ambitious plans a reality."

The ISS is a habitable artificial satellite and research laboratory in low Earth orbit which is a joint project between space agencies in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Russia, and Japan.

Back in 2018, The Terminator director James Cameron revealed to Empire magazine that he discussed making a movie on the ISS with Cruise many years ago.

"I actually talked to (Cruise) about doing a space film in space, about 15 years ago," he said. "I had a contract with the Russians in 2000 to go to the International Space Station and shoot a high-end 3D documentary there. And I thought, 'S**t, man, we should just make a feature.' I said, 'Tom, you and I, we'll get two seats on the Soyuz (spacecraft), but somebody's gotta train us as engineers.' Tom said, 'No problem, I'll train as an engineer.' We had some ideas for the story, but it was still conceptual."

According to Deadline, the movie will be an action-adventure story and won't be another instalment in the Mission: Impossible franchise.