10 Movie Stars Who Ruined Their Own Movies

Tom Cruise is arguably one of the few bonafide movie stars left whose name alone can genuinely open a film, and his hands-on approach to the movies he stars in has led to tremendous success in both the Mission: Impossible franchise and the recent Top Gun: Maverick.

But back in 2017, Cruise faced the worst professional embarrassment of his career when his attempt to reboot The Mummy fell spectacularly flat.

The film, designed as the beginning of Universal's "Dark Universe" - an MCU-esque interconnected world of movies also set to feature Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, and Russell Crowe - was a critical dud and underperformed at the box office, quickly killing off Universal's lofty plans.

And mere weeks after its release, reports emerged that the production was a chaotic one where Cruise had contractually guaranteed control over almost every aspect of the shoot.

Some even claimed that Cruise more-or-less directed large portions of the film himself, effectively shadow-directing inexperienced blockbuster filmmaker Alex Kurtzman.

Cruise also had the script rewritten to give himself a larger role in favour of The Mummy (Sofia Boutella), and insisted upon the dubious subplot where Cruise's protagonist is brought back from the dead, while also having major input on the final cut.

Numerous sources suggested that Cruise's desire to micro-manage every aspect of the film, even down to its marketing, stifled the project and basically doomed it from the jump.