When Tom Cruise buckled in for Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Legendary/Warner Bros. adventure “Digger,” shot in 35mm VistaVision by three-time Oscar winner Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, Oscar watchers perked up. After all, Iñárritu won his second Best Director Oscar for “The Revenant,” and Leonardo DiCaprio landed his first Oscar after “Birdman” took home Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay. And Cruise, 64, is overdue for an acting Oscar. Nominated for three acting and one producing Oscar over his storied career, he also took home an Honorary Academy Award last year.
It’s been a while since Cruise was in actual contention. At the height of his fame and charisma, his last nomination (for Supporting Actor) was 26 years ago, for his vivid role as a chauvinist motivational speaker in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia.” Playing a callow agent in Cameron Crowe’s sports rom-com “Jerry Maguire” and wheelchair veteran Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July” brought him two Best Actor nods, in 1997 and 1990.
What happened? Since then, Cruise has chosen another career route, preferring to burnish his commercial bona fides with such franchises as “Top Gun” and “Mission: Impossible.” (He’s prepping another Jerry Bruckheimer franchise return with the upcoming “Days of Thunder” sequel.)
So what kicked off his Oscar campaign? A mealy-mouthed, so-what GQ feature interview, the first sit-down Cruise has done with a magazine in years. He’s still all work, all film, all the time. The video features him and his director. And the photos, one of them shirtless, show off his manly physique. (Presumably, as has been the case for some time, Scientology was off the table.) I tracked his 2022 MasterClass Conversation at Cannes with Didier Allouch, which is one reason I’ll never land a Cruise interview.
“The mastery on display was Tom Cruise’s unflagging ability to reveal nothing,” I wrote. “Tom Cruise would rather be boring than lose control of an interview. He’s learned from his aberrations, whether jumping on the couch or advising people not to take prescription drugs. And so, his participation in a May 18 MasterClass Conversation at Cannes could have been an extension of Paramount’s 68-page press kit for ‘Top Gun: Maverick.’”
If I were in town, I’d be able to see Cruise do Q&As on Sept. 27 and 29. I’ll see “Digger” on the Warners lot on Sept. 19, while the New York press is invited to weekend morning screenings as well. So far, Cruise is not scheduled for any Q&As in New York. Cruise will fly to London for the Royal Premiere on Sept. 22. Flying him anywhere is an expensive enterprise. In the past, he has been known to deploy two private planes: the first to deliver his luggage to his hotel, so everything is set up by the time the second arrives.
Academy voters may be well disposed toward Cruise. “This is a movie star playing a character role,” said one veteran Oscar campaigner. “He relishes it. Did it in ‘Tropic Thunder’ with the best reviews. He’s having a good time. At that age it makes sense: ‘I can do other stuff besides just climb cliffs.’ Don’t think anybody holds it against him he made silly action pictures. They generated box office and respect.”
The question is how far Cruise will extend himself to promote this $160-million so-called comedy. The trailer shows the actor in full-makeup character mode as a brash entrepreneur who has somehow caused the end of the world and is trying to fix his mistake. It looks very “Dr. Strangelove.” While Iñárritu can craft commercial entertainment, it’s hard to tell where this one will fall on the spectrum of mainstream popularity. With a global marketing budget costing tens of millions plus an awards campaign that one insider estimated could be as high as $15 million, the movie, which is predicted to open on the soft side at $20 to $25 million domestic, is unlikely to make its money back. It would have to gross north of $300 million worldwide to break even, according to the insider. Cruise movies do tend to gross more overseas, so that could offset any weaker domestic numbers.
So it makes sense that Warners is going all in to promote Hollywood’s last movie star. Giant billboards are up on Sunset Boulevard and main thoroughfares in Los Angeles, and we can expect him to show up for junkets and anything safe. He will not sit down with a serious journalist — Kim Masters? Not happening — who might ask impertinent questions. Cruise’s press attaché is no longer his sister but veteran publicist Jan Craft, who used to work for Warners. The mighty Strategy PR is on the awards campaign.
As for Iñárritu, he’s all in on Cruise. “It was the most amazing, unexpected, sweet, gentle relation that I have had on a set,” Iñárritu told me a few months ago. “His manners, his understanding, his passion, and his integrity, and the way he prepares. He loves the process. Filmmaking has been his life for 40 years. I have never seen somebody so devoted. I was happy to share with him that passion. And at the same time, we built an incredible relation of mutual trust. He will surprise the world. People will see a new kind of thing. It was blessed, and not only him, but all the cast: Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, John Goodman, and Jesse Plemons. We had a blast. It was challenging, but it was wild comedy. And we laugh a lot. We have a wild time.”
Fasten your seatbelts!
“Digger” opens in theaters Oct. 2.
