Tomfoolery Proves Mission Improbable For Waning King Of Hollywood
The Sunday Age
Sunday April 30, 2006
FOR two decades, Tom Cruise has been Hollywood's $US100 million-dollar man. From 1986's Top Gun to last year's War of the Worlds, he has starred in 12 films that have earned nine-figure sums.
And now he is private-jetting around the world promoting his very own blockbuster, Mission: Impossible III. He is both the executive producer and the star of a movie that cost at least $US150 million ($A197 million) to make. But after his year of couch jumping, fiancee parading and Brooke Shields hectoring, the question is whether the superstar's tabloid-baiting behaviour will hurt him at the box office. Recent history would suggest not. War of the Worlds opened right after Cruise bounced all over Oprah's couch to proclaim his love for Batman Begins starlet Katie Holmes. It became the number one box office hit of 2005, grossing $US590 million. And at the beginning of the month, Cruise was once again rated the most powerful star in Hollywood on the Ulmer Scale, which measures an actor's ability to get a movie made. But market researcher James Ulmer did not give Cruise a perfect score - for the first time since 1990. "He's still the number one action star in the world but there are cracks in the Teflon," Ulmer told E! Entertainment. "For a star like Tom, it means that people are questioning some of his behaviour. The jokes that are constantly in the media about his (sexuality) and his Scientology allegiance show that either his publicity machinery is not being controlled to the extent that it was or that there is something of a pressure cooker that is actually affecting Tom." True, fans have stopped laughing with Cruise and started laughing at him. Cruise's action man poses at Mission: Impossible III's Rome premiere last week (including climbing on the roof of his limo) were derided. South Park's pulled Scientology episode (featuring Cruise in a closet) is all over the internet. Filmgoers at test screenings of the new film report that the audience cheers when Cruise is beaten up. At this year's Oscar alternative Razzies, Cruise was proclaimed Most Tiresome Tabloid Target. "He had been a very private person up until this past year," Razzies founder John Wilson said. "It certainly was a bizarre turn . . . the endless posing on the red carpet and just smooching like they were on the couch at home."None of this has helped his popularity, says New Idea's editor-in-chief Robyn Foyster: "He's lost the gloss and he's desperate to reclaim it."Cruise may proclaim that "I'm the best at changing nappies" but the birth of daughter Suri two weeks ago hasn't melted hearts. Hollywood blog Defamer speculated that Cruise's current publicity tour gives Holmes "an extra day to carve out her subterranean escape tunnel with a baby spoon". And New Idea's next issue tracks Cruise's post-partum travel and wonders why he isn't at home. But publicist Max Markson says Cruise is such a big star "he can do whatever he likes" and we'll still watch his movies. "The fact is, he's more in the public eye than ever, we can't get enough of him. "And that has to be good for his movie."
© 2006 The Sunday Age
Share This