Long before Tom Cruise was scoring near double-digit franchises and laughing at God and Morality like a typical Tuesday, he was in Jerry Maguire and Eyes Wide Shut, among others. Cut his teeth in cutting-edge, explicit films. Now, he’s ready to go back to his roots.
According to his longtime collaborator Chris McQuarrie, who recently co-produced Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 with him, a script currently under discussion could lead him to Return to the path of indie films about real-life violence like Made in America and Incidental. and drama.
In an interview with Empire, McQuarrie detailed the script he’s been working on with his Dead Reckoning co-writers since 2020: “Me and Cruise are talking about the next or maybe next one. The movie, which Eric and I developed together — what the internet calls “the rough movie.” That’s the movie they all wanted, and that’s what we wanted to make.”
Cruise, who has made it his one-man mission to keep homeless people in movie theater seats for the past few years, may have been rightly but tragically prophesied that the way to keep theaters open is a steady stream of franchises and Sequel – cue “Top Gun: Maverick” and the two back-to-back “Mission: Impossible” films. It wasn’t that long ago, however, that Cruise saw the value in a good old-fashioned indie film. These include Made in America in 2017, Edge of Tomorrow in 2014 and Oblivion in 2013. Action aside, there was a time when he was happy to laugh it off, all but shedding his perpetual grin in 2012’s Stone Age and 2007’s Tropic Thunder.
Now that Babenheimer may chart a course for the film outside the strict confines of a cookie-cutter franchise, perhaps it’s time for Cruise to take a break as cinematic savior and return to his roots. Many people may not remember him as a mid-budget glamourist by now, and it’s time to remind them.
See, Cruise hasn’t given up on saving the crown for his movie yet, and he’s still up against an all-knowing artificial intelligence supervillain in the next Mission: Impossible movie. It might be a while before we see Cruise return for this limited-budget movie, but we’re holding our breaths for him to skydive.
