Tom Cruise is one of the best action movie stars, who has been thriving in Hollywood for more than 35 years. At 59, Cruise is not showing any signs of slowing down. His first movie in the business as a leading man was in Risky Business in 1983, and after 39 years, Tom Cruise has earned his first $1 billion box office achievement, thanks to Top Gun: Maverick. Cruise has redefined what it means to be a star in Hollywood, and we are going to look at how he built himself as a juggernaut that has outlasted his peers.
Tom Cruise is the Product
At the core, Cruise runs his career as a business, and he knows that he is the product. Cruise has mixed serendipity with control over how he runs his career to produce successful box office movies. He understands how to manage his roles, body, money, and publicity so that he can stay relevant and at the top of his game. In addition, he has been flexible to change with the trends in Hollywood, so that he can steer himself in the right direction.
If you look at all Tom Cruise's movies, you will notice that it is his show; the film is like his advertisement platform. He is the performer, product, and even brand ambassador for his movies. To ensure that he expresses himself in the best way possible, Cruise has always relied on working with top directors. Typically, a director is the author of the film, but in Tom Cruise films, directors are more like brand managers who are meant to help position the product for success. But that is not all, Cruise engineered a system to ensure that his product always reaps the benefits.
In 1993, Cruise set up a film production company known as Cruise/Wagner Productions, together with Paula Wagner, his former talent agent. This was a clever move, because Cruise wanted to have more creative freedom in his film projects. Ever since the company’s inception, the company has generated $2.9 billion over 30 years. In the company’s first movie, Mission: Impossible, Cruise made sure that he banked a large chunk of the money through favorable terms in the contract. In the end, Cruise walked away with 22% of the gross revenue, which translated to $70 million. This structure made him rich, and provided him with more latitude over other projects in the future.
High Profile Stuntman
From his younger days, Cruise was always brewing that daredevil spirit that makes him perform stunts, like clinging to an airborne aircraft or running across the tops of tall buildings. At the age of 12, he bought his first motorcycle and that was the beginning of countless crashes. So, when he discovered acting, it was the perfect channel for him to pursue his ambitions and adventurous spirit to the max. That is how he began pouring his passion and soul into becoming the biggest action hero in the movie business.
We have already established that Tom Cruise is a businessman and an actor. And that is why it is easy to see why he insists on performing his stunts. Tom Cruise loves to entertain his audience, and he sees performing stunts as the gateway to enthralling them. During the filming of Mission Impossible 2, producers bluffed insurance companies so that Cruise could go ahead and perform his stunts. Even movie critics attest to the significance of his stunts as one of the reasons for the success of Mission Impossible 3, after he performed wild stunts at the top of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa. It’s hard to believe that Cruise, who seems to be nearing retirement, is still performing stunts in every mission in Mission Impossible movies, which are now things his fans always look forward to in new releases.
A great example of Cruise’s jaw-dropping stunts is in the movie Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, where he swims underwater without any breathing equipment. The scene, which was shot in one take, was possible because Cruise was able to hold his breath for six minutes, thanks to the advanced breathing technique taught in the military. For Cruise to successfully pull out the stunt in the film, he had to undergo months of training. According to the trainers, Cruise always pushed himself during training to surpass the targets set by the crew. For an average person, it may take years of training to accomplish such a feat, but since it's Tom Cruise, he crushed it in record time.
According to the New York Post, Wade Eastwood, a stunt coordinator, reported, “He stomps his feet and fights for it and tells [the studio] that basically if they don’t [let him do his stunts], he’s not going to do the movie.” For Cruise to perform crazy stunts, he regularly conditions his body. Part of it is due to his exercise routine and rigorous diet plan. It is public knowledge that Cruise takes nutrition tips and training from sports stars like David Beckham. Once you pair it up with his good looks, you have a recipe for a movie star. A good number of his past co-stars, like Simon Pegg, acknowledge his dedication to dietary discipline and physical training. Other stars also fancy training with him, because workout routines are synonymous with becoming a true icon in show business. It's hard to say when Cruise will hang his boots and sail to the sunset. But one thing is for sure, Tom Cruise will still be in this game for a while.