With Tom Cruise struggling at the box office in recent years, how long can he retain full creative control over big-budget movies?
When it comes to making movies, there are few artists as passionate and obsessive about the craft as Tom Cruise. He’s spent the best part of the 21st century as a creative force driving his projects forward. He’s not (usually) just an actor for hire. Cruise gets the green light and works obsessively during the development of his projects, most notably the Mission franchise and Top Gun: Maverick.
It can’t be overstated either: Top Gun: Maverick sent a jolt of electricity through a waning box office in a post-Covid landscape. A long-awaited legacy sequel to a box office hit isn’t always a guarantee of success. Most analysts suspected Maverick’s return would see decent returns, given Tom Cruise was still riding high from the franchise’s box-office high from Mission: Impossible – Fallout. However, I can’t imagine too many people predicted that Top Gun: Maverick would smash the summer box office and end up grossing $1.5 billion. If Cruise had creative control and the might to oversee big budgets before that, it was a whole different story. He was afforded a huge restructuring of the final two Mission: Impossible films, reshoots, and the luxury of spending insane amounts of time and money to prep headline stunts alone.
Filmmakers nowadays, even high-profile artists like Scorsese, Aronofsky, Affleck, Schrader, and more, are getting in bed with AI. The key argument has been expediting and simplifying processes in either pre- or post-production (and some have even decided there are benefits to using AI during production too). Studios are increasingly investing in the tools as well, no doubt in an effort to cut costs (and inevitably cut corners) throughout the development and production process.
So where does that leave an old-schooler like Tom Cruise, who operates in a way that maybe a handful of filmmakers have the power to? If Tommy C wants an action set piece involving a mountainside motorcycle jump, it doesn’t just happen with a couple of weeks of practice before rocking up to set. Whether it’s stunts or training his actors to withstand a real cockpit pulling serious G’s, a big wedge of budget is spent on things that are off-screen (to make it inevitably look better once it comes time to put them on screen). From the beginning until final release, years were spent bringing the final instalments of the Mission franchise to screen, but there’s a problem.
Whilst you can’t fault Cruise’s tireless dedication to spectacle, nor doubt the power he wields, the studios need to see the kind of returns that epitomised his peak years. Mission: Impossible – Fallout grossed just over $800 million. Top Gun: Maverick nearly doubled that and, in doing so, set a bar that suggested Cruise had the kind of pull as a top-tier Marvel production. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning grossed $571 million from a franchise-high budget of almost $300 million. Now, for most movies, grossing half a billion sounds like a dream, but when you’re talking mega-budget movies, it’s a different kettle of fish. The Final Reckoning nudged its gross up slightly to just under $600 million, but was still deemed an underwhelming return. Sure, the reality is that by the time streaming and physical media (where Cruise is still a relatively high performer) are taken into the mix, the films aren’t exactly losing money hand over fist. They’re probably into profit.
Then there’s Digger. An original concept that paired Cruise with visionary filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu. With indie sensibilities, this was still a big-budget studio production that afforded Cruise and his director carte blanche. This was supposed to be a leap for Cruise into character acting to show his range, after a couple of decades of playing archetypal heroes (albeit very well). From the trailers until the early reactions, it also seemed that this was a film destined to split audiences and critics. Almost wilfully divisive, which is a good way (sometimes) to become a cult classic. However, generally it’s best suited to modestly budgeted films. It seems that mainstream viewers just aren’t quite prepared to watch Cruise donning old-man makeup in a quirky, prescient black comedy about a near future facing ecological disaster. At least not on the big screen.
Seven years of development and a budget of $125 million (give or take), as well as a reasonable marketing budget on top (because Cruise is never going to go by quiet word of mouth), make this a costly auteur vision. The box office looks set to label this film one of the bombs of the year. Again, you say that with a caveat, which is that theatrical isn’t the be-all and end-all nowadays, whilst Cruise’s popularity on streaming means this will get plenty of life on the next stage of its release.
Cruise is now moving forward, it seems, with Days of Thunder 2, with a summer 2028 release pencilled into the schedule. What can we expect? Probably intense racing sequences that will best the stunning set pieces of the original. Cruise will ensure he’s there behind the wheel as much as possible, with his foot to the floor. He’ll also want his racing co-stars doing as much as possible too. But will this be the last tentpole project where Cruise has free rein and an almost unlimited budget to do what he wants? The likelihood is that Days of Thunder 2, or the potential third Top Gun movie, still being quietly progressed, will cost in the region of 200 million each, give or take. Both films will require months of prep, maybe even years or more to get the cast and crew up to the levels Cruise expects.
Now, the difference between Top Gun and Days of Thunder, besides the vehicles, was the success. Cruise’s NASCAR excess in style over substance didn’t initially do too well, though it has subsequently become a cult favourite. If the Brad Pitt-fronted F1 did unexpectedly well, it may well have eaten up the racing vehicle tentpole interest for some time. Will audiences want to get back behind the wheel so soon? NASCAR itself isn’t as universally popular as Formula One.
Likewise, whilst Maverick emerged at a time when the cinema experience was waning, and audiences weren’t even in a rush to come see Marvel pictures, we’re now in the midst of a significant box office uptick. There have been five billion dollar (plus) grossing films in 2026 already, and we still have Dunesday to come too. It might suggest audiences are actually turning up to watch movies again, but have we also seen the suggestion that there just aren’t enough Gen Z viewers interested in seeing Cruise’s efforts? It seems all that dedication to stuntwork and meticulous perfectionism in producing the movies is falling on deaf ears. Cruise aficionados will continue to turn up, of course, but one big thing that helped Maverick was the fact that it just seemed to capture the 9-to-90 zeitgeist. It was also a film that inspired multiple viewings. It was the first film I watched twice in the cinema during its release run for well over a decade. I just don’t see Days of Thunder 2 being the kind of project that threatens that majestic billion mark that films of that scale seem required to hit. In fact, it will struggle to match the grosses of the last two Mission films.
I suppose the big question is, how many more “misfires” can Tom Cruise take? As hyperbolic as that might seem for a guy whose previous two blockbusters have still gone well over a billion in unison. Digger could well be a free hit in some regards, given how much Cruise has delivered for his distributors over the past decade. If he’s suddenly told the keys to the Kingdom will only be handed over with restrictions and less freedom, can Cruise operate without the same powers he’s enjoyed in recent times? Does Cruise readjust expectations or simply call it a day? Still, doubt Cruise at your peril because, as we’ve seen in the past, even when it seems like his hit streak is falling by the wayside, like the disappointing performance of films like The Mummy or Mission: Impossible 3, he finds a way to pull a box office rabbit out of a hat.
Do you think Tom Cruise can still retain his Hollywood power? Is he still a box office force? Let us know on our socials @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
