The one movie Tom Cruise would never repeat: “I’ll never want to do another picture like that”
There aren’t many parts of the movie industry that haven’t been touched by Tom Cruise.
The mad man who likes to throw himself from buildings and cling to moving aeroplanes is not only one of the most prolific actors of his generation, but he is also one of the most profitable. But while he has entertained millions of cinemagoers, not all of his productions have been slam dunks.
Mission: Impossible, Top Gun, and Rain Man are not only some of his biggest and brightest movies the actor has ever made, but they are also some of cinema’s greatest box office successes. However, one movie will always stick out for the actor as a blackmark on his otherwise glittering CV.
Legend might just be Cruise’s biggest flop. A movie that failed to deliver on the promise of Cruise as a hero in the fantastical world as he pursues Princess Lili, played by Mia Sara. A movie that is rich with insane visuals and deadly creatures might have suggested a truly enveloping experience for the audience, but it failed to deliver on all fronts.
Perhaps worse is that Cruise and director Ridley Scott endured some tough times while on set as they tried to get things just right for the film: “It’s a movie-movie,” Cruise said during a conversation with Interview. “There was a lot of post-production. Ridley [Scott] made a fairy tale, a breakthrough visual film. I think the studio thought the whole piece was a little too romantic. So instead of just releasing it, Ridley said, ‘Okay, let’s go back and rescore it and give it a little harder edge.’ Now it’s ready to go.”
It wasn’t the only issue to hit the production, given that the set caught fire during shooting, as Cruise explained to Rolling Stone. It was just one of many reasons the project was delayed and it left a bitter taste in Cruise’s mouth, “I’ll never want to do another picture like that again,” the actor shared.
While disappointing, it did offer Cruise a reminder of the kind of movies he now wanted to make: “In Legend, I’m this magical character, Jack O’ The Green,” he said. “The sets were huge. Sometimes we would be working on a scene that might last 30 seconds in the film, but it took a week to shoot it. It’s stunning and gorgeous and poetic and most of the time I would be looking at a piece of black tape and having to imagine all of it.”
“It was exciting, but it made me hungry to do a piece like Top Gun,” Cruise said, reminding us all that sometimes the biggest mistakes can lead us to our biggest successes. It’s an experience Cruise has had with another of his less favourable pictures: Cocktail. But a career flop can – and probably always should be – a lesson to be learned, as Cruise once shared: “You can’t get messed up … cannot cannot cannot get mixed up in the power games and the gross games. Because then you start making decisions that aren’t organic to what you want to do, and you’re going to be very dissatisfied with the choices you make. If your choices are based on grosses and the film doesn’t do well, what does that mean? It leaves you with nothing. I’ve always felt that”.
Legend might be a moment to forget for Tom Cruise, but the fact that it would push him towards making Top Gun, arguably the defining moment of his career, means the movie is perhaps just as pivotal.
