Well it worked so-so at the box office just two years ago and didn't particularly defeat the press and public image of Tom Cruise which is undoubtedly at it's lowest point of his career right now. Eyebrows are being raised, critics are chomping at the bit to say it's a move of desperation because it really is beginning to look extremely likely that Tom Cruise will shoot a fourth installment in the Mission Impossible franchise before the end of the year. And I know Cruise really loved his time on Mission Impossible III but maybe the critics are right because there is no denying it's a direct result of the $15 million domestic bomb that was his first movie under the newly formed U.A. banner - Lions for Lambs - the lowest grossing Tom Cruise film in 25 years. I don't think it's possible to deny that, he has not in the past shown this kind of eagerness to shoot a sequel.
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If you add that alongside the uncertainty over how well Cruise playing a Nazi German will go down (but a nice Nazi, of course) in next year's Valkyrie, a movie not the kind of fodder that will attract huge numbers and that "Biggest Movie Star on the Planet" persona and you can see why the panic is setting in. If 2008 has shown us anything with George Clooney, Keanu Reeves, Hugh Jackman, Renee Zellweger, Johnny Depp and Nicole Kidman from the back end of last year (with only Will Smith as the exception) it's that the age of the movie star is beginning to fade and that could have disastrous consequences for Cruise. Where in the past terrible looking movies that would star the biggest Hollywood names would still attract the highest audiences, it's movies with interesting plots or inventive high concepts such as Cloverfield and 21 which can find a big audience that will make big profits. With few exceptions like Robert Downey Jr... there ain't that many movie stars left standing.
So we have to wonder if another high profile Mission Impossible movie will really do Cruise that much good? Despite terrific reviews, the brand name that is J.J. Abrams and a really intense trailer - Mission Impossible III still ended up being a $100 million short of the previous film in the franchise despite it's success - which was enough to get him fired at Paramount in the first place and began the chain of events which ended with his biggest flop of his career. Possibly because of the popularity of MI: III on DVD and from those who have seen it, Viacom Boss Summer Redstone (the guy severed Cruise from Paramount) last week said that he would welcome Cruise back to the drawing board for another Mission Impossible outing if the film comes together which is certainly looking likely with each passing day. Personally and I've said this for an awful long time - I would advise Tom Cruise to 100% do the Ben Stiller comedy Hardy Men which was talked about last year. Let's not forget that Tom Cruise is a brilliant comedic actor, something we haven't seen in YEARS from him but it's how he introduced himself to the world in the 80's - and a populist comedy done in the Judd Apatow vein will entice back those who are fed up with the intense Cruise they have seen both on and off screen for the past four years. A friendly Cruise - a Cruise they can laugh alongside rather than at for a change. I'm not sure another action vehicle will be of any benefit at all to him right now, I really can't see anything better to win him back into the hearts and minds of so many than a movie that will make us laugh. Though I really did like Mission Impossible III and as a film fan, I won't mind seeing him do that again but if I was his P.R. agent I would be dead set against it.
