The name of Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski was attached to the big screen adaptation of the Arvid Nelson graphic novel Oblivion as far back as July of last year and while the premise of humans escaping the scorched ruins of Earth’s surface to live in the clouds is intriguing Universal needed more than ‘From the director of Tron: Legacy’ to plaster over the poster to draw in the crowds.

Now it seems that particular problem has been solved with the casting of perhaps the most famous face in Hollywood, as Deadline reports Tom Cruise has officially signed on the play the lead in the film. He will play a soldier who repairs the  drones that patrol the desolate surface and destroy savage aliens known as Scavengers, when a woman crashes to the surface in a craft and they set of on a journey of discovery and adventure.

Cruise is no stranger to sci-fi action adventuring with after his work on Minority Report and War of the Worlds with Spielberg and while Oblivion sounds like it may not break any moulds the casting of Cruise shows that Universal have enormous faith, and more importantly – money, in Kosinski and his film.