We’re starting to think that Oprah Winfrey is some kind of mystical genie, you know.
Just look at Tom Cruise. Just the other week he was in the worst professional state of his career, then he zipped over to Oprah and – blam – there’s suddenly a lot of talk about him returning to Paramount to make Mission: Impossible 4.
If this Mission: Impossible 4 talk is true then it’s an incredible turnaround for Tom Cruise. And just in the nick of time, too – if we all cross our fingers tight enough and maybe chant a little, then the thrill of being given a second chance to make more blockbuster movies might just turn Tom Cruise back into the obnoxiously cocksure prick that we all remember from the good old days.
Tom Cruise is no fun these days, because even he’s realised that his career’s in trouble. Nobody went to see Lions For Lambs and Valkyrie has as much of a bad buzz as you’d expect a movie about a one-eyed German midget with an American accent trying to blow up Hitler with some hand luggage to have.
But worse still, Tom Cruise is just rolling over and taking the criticism now. Look at Tom’s interview on Oprah; he was so hushed and quick to apologise for everything that Oprah probably could have kicked a puppy in the face during the interview and got Tom Cruise to take the blame for it.
That’s not Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is the tiny man who laughs too loud at everything, greets people by clicking his fingers and pointing at them at the same time and can barely go five seconds without grinning like an infuriatingly smug bastard who you want to push face-first down a staircase. That’s the Tom Cruise we want to see again, not Tom Cruise the whiny sodding girly victim we’re lumbered with now.
And we might just get the old Tom Cruise back, if his plans to make Mission: Impossible 4 come to fruition. He wasn’t supposed to make Mission: Impossible 4, you see – not since his crackpot behaviour during the promotion of Mission: Impossible 3 caused Sumner Redstone to effectively sack him from Paramount on the basis that all women hate him.
There was talk that Brad Pitt would take Tom Cruise’s place on Mission: Impossible 4, but when Sumner Redstone and Tom Cruise were seen eating lunch together, suspicions were raised that Tom Cruise might be on the way back. And that was all but confirmed yesterday when Redstone called Tom Cruise a ‘good friend’ during a press conference in Seoul. The Associated Press reports:
Despite the severed relationship, Cruise, 45, is in talks with Paramount to star in a fourth “Mission: Impossible” film. Viacom is Paramount’s parent company. “I consider Tom Cruise a great actor and a good friend,” Redstone said. “And if Paramount decides — and they will make the decision — to move ahead with him, I will not object.” The 84-year-old Redstone said Tuesday that he did not know if Cruise would be chosen for the film. “That’s up to Brad Gray, who runs Paramount,” Redstone said. “He will make the decision.”
You have to admire Tom Cruise and Sumner Redstone for getting over their differences here, but it was inevitable that this would happen – some things are just meant to be together, and that includes commercially-crippled movie stars and octogenarian billionaires with faces like the melting Nazi at the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
Read more:
Mogul Redstone: Cruise can star in next ‘Mission Impossible’ – AP
Mithaearon says
Cruise doesn’t have the time for MI:4 (notice how down I am calling it MI:4 and not Mission Impossible 4 ;) ), he’s got to be spending all his time fighting Xenu.
Harry Georgatos says
Pray mission 4 does not have the boring IMF sting operations of the first three movies. These movies pander to submoronic teenagers who want simple disjointed storytelling. Look at what a gifted director like Christopher Nolan did to the BATMAN franchise. Adults want to watch these genres also, but not when the material is dumbed down to undemanding teenagers. More more Ethan Hunt on the run from the agency.