With reports of him being cast in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s next film, the world’s greatest movie star is heading for an auteur renaissance
Though he’s been stuck in blockbuster territory over the last decade, it won’t be lost on anyone that Tom Cruise is one of the best. Would Top Gun: Maverick have been the rollicking success it was in 2022 if not for his emotional earnestness, and preternatural ability to make a movie about jet planes put grit in the tearducts of Guys everywhere? Unlikely. Yet, even as Maverick went on to take a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, he wasn’t justly rewarded with an abundance of acting nods. He was the movie. His acting chops are criminally underrated, and it’s about time he gets his dues: this is the guy who did Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, and Rain Man. Fundamentally, you don’t become the world’s biggest movie star without being very good at what you do.
The naysayers, if there are any, will soon be proven wrong. The ‘90s indie Cruise renaissance is just over the horizon.
Recent reports have placed the 61-year-old at the top of the bill for the next project from Alejandro González Iñárritu, a director with a reputation for squeezing the best out of his A-list leads: he’s the guy who made Michael Keaton fly in Birdman, and pit Leo against a bear in The Revenant for his first Oscar win. If you’re hankering for a megawatt Tom Cruise acting masterclass harkening back to the Colour of Money days, this seems like a sure bet.
It has been a shift in Cruise’s career trajectory that fans might’ve seen coming for a while. In recent years, the actor has diligently smuggled emotionally poignant, deeply human narratives into his big-budget studio action movies. Look at the aforementioned Top Gun: Maverick, which is as much about our inevitable confrontation with mortality as it was a high-throttle rollercoaster ride with lots of jet fighters. The film was replete with bittersweet moments that studio productions often scoff at: think the emotional reunion with Iceman (Val Kilmer), or Maverick seemingly sacrificing himself to save Rooster (Miles Teller). The newest Mission: Impossible movies, which explore similar thematic territory, have also been undergirded by a sense of vulnerability for Ethan Hunt. These are appropriate concerns of a movie star entering his 𝓈ℯ𝓍agenarian years. Legacy is clearly on the mind.
The Ińárritu film, if recent reports are to be believed, comes as part of a broader pattern for Cruise. Last week, movie insider Jeff Sneider reported that the actor hopes to land a role in Quentin Tarantino’s allegedly final film, The Movie Critic. While the casting is yet to be confirmed, and the role is reported to be minor, it only adds to the sense that Cruise is re-entering his second Very Serious Actor era. In fact, according to Variety, Cruise has explicitly name checked his Magnolia boss Paul Thomas Anderson as an auteur he wants to relive the glory days with. The 1999 drama, in which he portrayed an obnoxious self-help guru not unlike a VHS-era Andrew Tate, was the last to see him nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars.
Right now, PTA is hard at work on a new film with Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall and Sean Penn, which is untitled, and allegedly boasts a budget north of $100 million for Warner Bros. If the studio can cough up Leo money for PTA, it stands to reason that they can do the same with Cruise — not least with their recent non-exclusive production deal in mind.
None of this is to say that Cruise is going to start walking around with a MUBI bag over his shoulder, nor stop risking his life for the good of the movies; a third Top Gun is still in the works, and he’s still set to go to outer space for a new, original title. If anything, we’re getting a double helping of Cruise-y goodness. The death-courting stunts and a late-stage callback to the indie gems that made him not only a movie star, but a damn good actor. One thing’s for sure: Cruise’s world domination will continue with explosive aplomb, and we’re all along for the thrill ride.
