Tom Cruise once tried to revolutionise cinema, and nobody cared: “I say, ‘Fuck you, OK?'”
How things can change. Tom Cruise, who was credited with virtually single-handedly saving Hollywood from one of its biggest-ever downturns, once tried to revolutionise cinema, and nobody gave a shit.
Thanks to his insistence that there was no way in hell he would ever let Top Gun: Maverick debut on streaming, the star held onto the legacy sequel for years and proved himself right when it became the biggest hit of his entire career, earning almost $1.5 billion at the box office.
It was much-needed proof that the theatrical industry was alive and well, and all it took was one of its biggest names and a blockbuster movie to prove it. His peers were falling over themselves to congratulate him on a job well done, a far cry from when he’d previously tried to breathe new life into a stagnating medium.
In the early 1990s, Cruise wasn’t quite the monolithic figure he is today, but he was still an A-lister with plenty of clout behind the scenes. As a result, when he collaborated with Ron Howard on the tedious drama, Far and Away, he managed to wrangle some technology into the production that was close to his heart.
He’s always been known as an obsessive sort, and his investment in every film he makes begins from the second he signs on and carries right through to the day of release. When he began to doubt that the tried-and-trusted techniques for sound recording were still worthy of their place in the cinematic landscape, he decided to try and shake up the status quo.
To do that, he turned to Clearsound, an audio system developed and adopted by the Church of Scientology. Developed by L Ron Hubbard, who was credited with the patent, his most famous follower was adamant that it was the future. “There’s no such thing as a great Hollywood sound system,” Cruise told Rolling Stone in 1992. “I’ve done enough looping in my life to know.”
“No one usually gives a shit about sound,” he added, explaining that the Dolby folks weren’t too thrilled by his insistence. “With a lot of them, it just pisses them off. And I say, ‘Fuck you, OK?’ I want the best. I simply found a system that’s better. All I want is clarity on the voice. I don’t think that’s asking for so much, is it?”
Did the Clearsound movement, pioneered by Cruise, become the industry standard? Of course not. He fought for its use again on his next picture, Rob Reiner’s A Few Good Men, and then it just kind of faded out. It’s still used by Scientology, but the star’s pleas to usher in a new era of crystal-clear audio quality in Hollywood ultimately fell on deaf ears.
