Tom Cruise Has a Hit, But He’s Still, Sadly, a Relic

The movie world isn’t for movie stars anymore.

There is something truly incredible about Tom Cruise — the biggest movie star of my lifetime, really, the only logical definition of a movie star over the last 50 years — having the biggest opening weekend of his entire career right now. His movie Top Gun: Maverick made $156 million over Memorial Day weekend, the biggest opening for that weekend, by far the most money a Cruise movie has ever made over a weekend. It did this while a pandemic that has decimated the movie industry is having another surge. It did this even though the film itself was delayed nearly four years. It did this even though Cruise is a month away from turning 60 years old. It grows more incredible the more you think about it.

But I suspect it’s an aberration, one that’s the result of an existing property, Gen-X and boomer nostalgia, pent-up demand for a non-Marvel movie and the film itself’s old-school technique and sensibility. (It’s also pretty good. That helps.) That’s to say: It’s a hit because it reminds us of a time that is long over.

It’s particularly noteworthy because Cruise is coming off a relatively fallow period in his career … one that made you wonder if, in fact, his days as a big movie star were over. (Which isn’t an insane notion: He’s almost 60, after all.) Cruise has made only two movies over the last four years: Maverick and Mission: Impossible — Fallout, the sixth installment of his Mission: Impossible series, the only real box office clout he has anymore. When you take out the Mission: Impossible movies, the last decade has a nearly unending series of box office disappointments: Two lousy Jack Reacher movies, Oblivion, Rock of Ages, American Made, even Edge of Tomorrow, which is probably the best of all of these movies but one that was considered a flop when it was released. (American Made is good too, but that wasn’t a hit either.) And The Mummy was so bad that it not only flopped, it actually destroyed a whole series of Universal monster movies the studio had been preparing. It really has been a long time since Cruise had anything remotely considered a massive hit that wasn’t either an established franchise (like Mission: Impossible) or a Steven Spielberg movie (like War of the Worlds or Minority Report). The last…