Character Beats Talent: The Future of Tom Cruise

There’s so much that has been and can be said about the career of Tom Cruise, from his meteoric rise as the world’s most bankable movie star, to the rather sudden plummeting in popularity following (checks notes) something about a couch jumping? His popularity took further hits for his connection to one of the world’s most insidious so called religions before he earned his way back into the collective hearts and minds of the people by throwing himself out of airplanes, holding his breath for six minutes and riding off cliffs on motorcycles. Oh and let's not forget that the man could probably pilot a fighter jet if the government would let him. Then there’s his whole fraught personal life involving ex wives and estranged kids. Sure there’s a lot I could say about all that stuff that he’s done and been a part of, but I’m much more interested in where the Hollywood icon is going than where he's been.

Following the release of this year’s rather hubristic Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, Cruise has 4 films in various stages of development, although only one of these has been filmed and has a scheduled release date.

• Untitled Alejandro G. Iñárritu film - 2026
  • Directed by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
  • Written by: Sabina Berman, Alexander Dinelaris and Nicolás Giacobone 
  • Co-Starring: Jesse Plemons , Michael Stuhlbarg , Emma D'Arcy , Riz Ahmed and John Goodman.
  • The IMDB Description: The most powerful man in the world causes a disaster and embarks on a mission to prove that he is the savior of humanity.

• Broadsword
  • Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie
  • Written by: Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen .
  • Co-Starring: Marion Cotillard  and Henry Cavill 
  • The IMDB Description: A Marine Sergeant crash-lands in WWII France, the only survivor of his mission. He teams up with a brave local girl as they journey across dangerous landscapes, dodging enemies in a desperate bid to reach allied territory.

• The Gauntlet
  • Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie.
  • Written by: Christopher McQuarrie.
  • Co-Starring: Scarlett Johansson 
  • The IMDB Description: Detective Shockley must transport a witness to testify against a mobster. Betrayed by corrupt cops, they hijack a bus and reinforce it, attempting to reach the court while being pursued by armed officers.

• Untitled Space X Project
  • Directed by:  Doug Liman .
  • The IMDB Description: Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman travel far beyond Earth to film the first ever Hollywood motion picture in outer space.

All these things leave me with lots of thoughts: When the fuck does this guy sleep? Is he ever not making a movie? Does working with a constantly enabling director, McQuarrie, who seems addicted to Cruise’s staccato, figure out the story later, filmmaking style really bring out his best work? Or is McQuarrie just as addicted to high stakes filmmaking as Cruise? John Glenn went to space when he was 77 so Cruise probably has some time. The Gauntlet is an objectively mediocre Clint Eastwood movie, the first in his Directorial contract with Warner Brothers - and while it might be remembered fondly as a hangover watch or by die hard Eastwood fans, it's not even in his top ten and features a considerable amount of misogyny from Eastwood directed at co-star, and then wife, Sondra Locke. Besides the sturdy premise I see little reason why Cruise or McQuarrie would want to remake this. Maybe Cruise is just trying to match Steven Spielberg with that Bradley Cooper Bullit that’s been in production since 2022? I digress. Broadsword sounds like a perfectly serviceable movie, although the idea of Cruise being guided across a warzone by a little girl seems about as subtle a reference to his estranged relationship with his daughter Suri, as the stunts in Missions being a metaphor for the pursuit of our acclaim and appreciation of his entertainment prowess. Then there’s this whole business with Iñárritu that’s billed as a comedy. Can Cruise pull off the most atomic of self roastings to pivot away from the rather bold faced accusations of egotism following the comically self important Final Reckoning?

I feel like Cruise, following the Christopher McQuarrie Mission movies, has trapped himself in his films. I theorize: He doesn’t really know how to process reality in the same way anymore because his entire life has become this carefully orchestrated performance, one movie leading into the next as a means of processing his life. Each film he makes is serving some sort of internal purpose to him, that he can only express through the making of a movie and embodying the protagonist who must carry the thematic weights across the threshold of the plot to find any satisfaction. The world’s most expensive and dangerous therapy. The Final Reckoning promotional campaign trail was probably the most front and center he’s been since before Covid. He gave many more interviews and appeared in long form speaking engagements where he got into his memories and process in a way that simultaneously humanized him but also revealed a few chinks in the armor - one of which being that no matter what we all get old. He looks great in Top Gun: Maverick but that was filmed in late 2018, there’s been a lot of mileage accrued since then. He still looks great, but there’s only so many methods for battling the ravages of time in ways that don’t turn you into a cartoonish version of your younger self and sooner or later he’s not going to be able to credibly play the same type of action hero he's transformed into. In this state of constant performance we can glean the lack of honesty Cruise is giving when there are moments of unchosen vulnerability, like when he was asked about his plans for Father’s Day and was clearly shook. Given the popularity of of legasequels and Cruise’s own stated intention to make another Top Gun, there’s a film from his back catalogue that I’ve been wanting him to make a sequel to forever, and that’s  The Color of Money, 1986, Directed by Martin Scorsese.

The Hustler1961

The Color of Money in itself is a sequel to the 1961 film The Hustler, directed by Robert Rossen starring Paul Newman , Jackie Gleason , Piper Laurie  and George C. Scott. It follows white hot livewire Newman as Fast Eddie Felson, a pool hustler who’s ambitions are almost matched by his skill as he takes on Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats, the current best pool player in America. The story is one of ego and hubris with a second act marked by a fall from grace and a conclusion that marries triumph with tragedy. The film was critically lauded and helped catapult Newman’s already rising star farther into the stratosphere. Twenty one years later, Paul Newman phoned Martin Scorsese, who had released Raging Bull two years earlier and was then in the process of premiering The King of Comedy, and asked him if he’d like to direct a sequel to The Hustler. The author of the novel of The Hustler, Walter Tevis,  had also written a sequel entitled The Color of Money. The plot of this novel and the film bear little resemblance to each other. In the film, The Color of Money, Fast Eddie Felson has long been retired from billiards of any kind and now makes his living as a bootlegger and stake horse for other gamblers and gamers. Then he comes across Vincent (Cruise), a brash, immature, cocky 9 ball player with a thunderclap break and a winning face you’d wanna punch. Together, along with Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), Vincent’s girlfriend, they embark on a road trip to hustle pool halls across the mid-west before arriving at a big tournament in Atlantic City. On the journey Eddie tries to teach Vincent that sometimes when you lose, you actually win - suckering people into playing you for higher stakes by dumping games, having a third party bet against you until it’s time to turn the tide and take back triple what you lost. Vincent gets this concept but his youthful pride and ego take over wreaking havoc on his relationship with Eddie and Carmen before the trio eventually part ways. Eddie sits in shame before picking up a pool cue for the first time in 20 years and begins to train himself back to prominence before crossing paths with Vincent once more in Atlantic City where they clash and then reconcile. A tale of confidence, self respect, redemption and reconciliation, The Color of Money is absolutely one of my favorite movies ever.

The Color of Money1986

Cruise had already been in the wildly successful Risky Business and All The Right moves and Newman suggested him to Scorsese, and the rest is history. His performance as Vincent is a standout to me. It’s the proto-Cruise, the more bewildered, cocky confidence mixed with uncertainty and lack of experience as both the character and actor. Although in classic Cruise fashion he bought a pool table for his apartment and trained for the role’s trick shots with intensity. There is a scene where Vincent decimates his opponent while dancing around the table like a martial artist using his cue-stick like a bow-staff all while singing along to Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London. It is crazy that The Color of Money came out the same year as Top Gun.

Newman, even though his career was long from over, wanted to bring young actors into the fold, or more specifically a young actor with the charm and candor to breathe new life into the types of roles that Newman would have taken on in his youth. Now I not only think that Cruise has followed in his mentor’s steps in this fashion - did anyone besides Richard Linklater nerds know who Glenn Powell  was 5 years ago? - but that he should also follow in Newman’s shoes when it comes to the type of roles he takes on as he ages. Prior to The Color of Money Newman had just slam dunked out an Oscar for his role in The Verdict, in which embattled alcoholic and ambulance chasing lawyer Frank Glavin makes a choice to stand for something rather than wallow in his own mediocrity - a choice that may cost him everything or deliver him righteous salvation. Directed by Sidney Lumet  and written by David Mamet , The Verdict is a towering piece of film in which Newman absolutely upends the image of himself as the virile cocksure and charming rogue with a heart of gold and transforms into an absolute loser - Frank Glavin is what a Paul Newman character would look like if he wasn’t cool, had never done anything great and just washed out into a has been who never was. It’s this type of moral and emotional complexity and awareness that made Newman one of the all time greats, and I think that the maturity in taking on roles like these is the only thing that Cruise is missing in his trophy case of achievements.

The Verdict1982

I always imagined what things would look like for Vincent as time went on. Surely he and Eddie would have remained friends and carried on hustling and being gamers. I thought that Vincent would eventually become wealthy, maybe buy a sports team, maybe get a stake in a casino. He probably wouldn’t be able to hold onto really deep intimate relationships unless he did some considerable growth, and considering that money just seems to insulate people into emotional stagnation, I posited that he’d remain single, or at least be paying alimony to someone with even potentially an estranged child or two out there. Then Eddie would die. And Vincent would be alone. Set in the modern age of online gambling, the politicization of MMA, the corruption of professional sports and the evolution of the information age, the hustle just wouldn’t be the same. The type of games that Vincent liked to play are falling by the wayside, but even if they weren’t there was no one left to play anymore. To watch Cruise explore a character he’d played decades earlier as a means of exploring his own evolution and relationship with himself, his mentors, achievements and failures? That’s something I want to see him do. I want to see him lose, like truly lose it all and then have to build himself back up again - that’s far more interesting than always staying on top. I imagine a younger woman, say Jennifer Lawrence, a hustler and gambler existing in the world of blurred legality that Vincent comes and goes from. Between them a new game would start when she could first take a stunning amount of money off him at the poker table before he turns the tables on her months later at a horse race, and then their tension coming to a head with a game of pool where she hustles Vincent and in the process he loses his Sports franchise - or something equally vast - and he has to reckon with his past, who he is, and what he’s going to become, while the young woman comes to learn the cost of this so-called wealth and success she’s suddenly become adorned in. In the end they both meet again and recognize that the true wealth isn’t money, or power or connections: it’s being seen and understood by someone, and that their bond is that they are the last of a dying breed of hustlers and gamers. It doesn’t need to be romantic. It doesn’t need to be paternalistic, the female lead could be an adult woman and she’d still be 30 years younger than Cruise. This is just what I imagine someone could do with a story like this.

Ultimately as much as I’ve appreciated the most recent run of Cruise, I miss seeing him really act. In the latter Mission movies he might as well be Buster Keaton, his dialogue either paired down to exposition or pleading with someone to give him a chance. I’d be much more interested in Cruise giving himself a chance to show some true vulnerability and honesty through his performances, and then maybe the guy can find some peace and take a nap or something. Who’s to say what he’ll really do next as it appears he can make just about anything happen, but I’d be much more interested in seeing him engage in the complexities and nuances of age and his experience than I would be in watching another Top Gun, as thrilling as that was or Mission movie that asserts his godhood. The true stunt moving forward is going to be capturing our attention and hearts with roles and performances that require vulnerability and honesty and for someone like Cruise where his image is his currency, that is more terrifying than hanging off the side of the Burgh Khalifa or the outside of an airplane.