Tom Cruise: The Last of the Truest Movie Stars?
Tom Cruise always comes to mind when you think about a Hollywood actor. Handsome, wealthy, and successful, the 60-year-old actor is one of the most iconic stars.
And with more than four decades in the industry, you’d expect Tom to start slowing down, given that he has already proven what he can do and has established a reputation.
But Tom appears to get on a never-ending mission when he accepts a movie role, and that is to deliver that adrenaline-rich viewing experience not just for his fans but to all moviegoers.
Today, movie studios rely on an army of excellent stunt doubles and advanced technology to render realistic visual effects. But Tom is all about filming his scenes himself and in real life, so you can expect this seasoned actor to decline a project if he cannot do everything himself in an actual location.
Tom’s goal meant going beyond what is expected of an actor. He trained the Top Gun: Maverick team to fly a fighter jet and did his own stunts for the Mission Impossible films.
Tom is both an actor and a producer, and despite his being in the limelight for so long, people don’t get tired of a Tom Cruise movie. He can still seamlessly command a box-office hit that even Hollywood favorites and heartthrobs like Brad Pitt can’t match.
And after the success of his latest movie, Top Gun: Maverick, Tom won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Other actors like Ryan Reynolds, Vin Diesel, and Dwayne Johnson have also been successful in the action movie industry, but Tom remains the pack leader. Nothing can beat him, especially when it comes to stunts.
Top Gun: Maverick, a blockbuster, has made Tom the highest-earning film actor for 2022. He is expected to make at least $100 million from movie sales cut from home entertainment rentals, streaming revenue, and his agreed salary.
Right now, the movie has crossed so many firsts, not just for Tom’s career but for the whole movie industry. It is Paramount’s highest-grossing film ever on a worldwide stage, earning $1.2 billion, and Tom’s first movie to make more than a billion dollars.
Fans may argue that there are Hollywood actors on the same level as Tom, like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but Tom is unique in that he can promote his movies globally effortlessly. And these two other leading men, unfortunately, can no longer draw revenues from their films as much as Tom can.
Tom’s movie characters frequently defy norms and establish standards for what an action movie ought to be like. Recall the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol movie, where he performed one of the biggest stunts in Hollywood. Remember Tom, as Ethan Hunt, running and wall-crawling along Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building?
Tom is aware of the dangers, but he also understands how crucial it is to the film’s authenticity that he performs the stunts himself. But these risks always come at a price. For example, while filming Mission: Impossible: Fallout in 2017 in London, Tom injured his right leg while trying to jump from one building to another. It took him an impressive nine months to recover and a gruesome 10 hours of rehab every day to get there.
These are reasons why Tom Cruise is one of a kind, a true action star, and one of the last remaining true actors in Hollywood today.
