Moviefone Editorial

Tag: tom cruise

  • Val Kilmer Returning For ‘Top Gun 2’ as Iceman

    23rd Annual Simply Shakespeare Benefit Reading Of 'The Two Gentlemen Of Verona'Val Kilmer feels the need, the need for speed again. The actor is reprising his infamous role as Iceman in “Top Gun: Maverick.”

    Tom Cruise is already on board for the sequel to the 1986 classic that made him a star. In the original, Kilmer’s Tom “Iceman” Kazansky and Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell were rivals (with Iceman telling Maverick “I don’t like you because you’re dangerous”) but eventually begrudgingly earned each other’s respect.

    The sequel continues to follow fighter pilots in the academy, but in a world where drones are making the old style of flying obsolete. Rumors point to Maverick now in a teaching role (so, basically, the student has become the master).

    Production recently began on “Top Gun 2,” with Cruise marking the occasion on Twitter:

    “Top Gun: Maverick” is slated for release July 12, 2019.

  • New ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ Trailer Is an Eye-Popping Stunt Feast

    Say what you will of Tom Cruise, but the guy can do a stunt.

    The actor is well-known for performing much of his own stuntwork (and injuring himself in the process). That dedication really pays off in the new trailer for “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” which is jam-packed with footage of fight scenes, car chases, and of course, Cruise jumping off buildings and dangling from a helicopter. It’s what he does.

    This trailer gives us a bit more insight into Henry Cavill’s character, a deadly CIA operative who is an antagonist to Ethan Hunt. The CIA is called in when dastardly villain Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) escapes.

    The usual suspects are all back, including Simon Pegg as Benji, Ving Rhames as Luther, and Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. Alec Baldwin returns as Ethan’s boss, as does Michelle Monaghan as Ethan’s wife. Angela Bassett and Vanessa Kirby join in the fun for the first time.

    “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” opens in theaters July 27.

  • 9 Movies You Never Knew Inspired Theme Park Attractions

    9 Movies You Never Knew Inspired Theme Park Attractions

  • Here’s a Tiny Tease of the ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ Super Bowl Trailer

    Mission: Super Bowl.

    “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” the sixth movie in the action-packed spy franchise, is debuting its first trailer during Sunday’s Super Bowl. But to whet fans’ appetites, the movie released a very brief, six-second tease of what’s to come.

    Tom Cruise races on a motorcycle (of course), new cast member Henry Cavill throws some punches, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames look awed/horrified, and Cruise flies a helicopter on what appears to be a collision course with a tractor trailer. So, the usual.

    “Fallout” also brings back Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, Michelle Monaghan as Ethan Hunt’s wife, and Sean Harris as Syndicate boss Solomon Lane. Added into the mix are Cavill as a possible villain (sporting a wicked mustache that caused “Justice League” production headaches), as well as Angela Bassett and “Crown” star Vanessa Kirby in unknown roles.

    And even though Cruise badly broke a leg while filming a stunt, the movie is still on track for its July 27 release date.

  • Why ‘American Made’ Cruised at the Box Office While ‘Flatliners’ Expired

    At last, we got a real race.

    In this weekend’s box office competition, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” was widely expected to win a second time. “IT” was finally expected to slow down in its fourth weekend. And Tom Cruise‘s new “American Made” was expected to fall short of the others and open around $16 million.

    What happened instead was a photo finish, with the three movies estimated to finish within $310,000 of each other. As of Sunday, “IT” had regained the top spot and was due to enjoy its third week at No. 1 with an estimated $17.3 million. “American Made” did slightly better than expected and claimed to have edged past the $17 million mark by just $16,000. Which meant that “Kingsman,” with an estimated $17 million even, was just a hair behind in third place. (Of course, all these numbers and positions could change when actual weekend tallies are released on Monday.)

    That’s pretty exciting, especially since there was another wide release, “Flatliners,” that underperformed its already modest predictions and debuted in fifth place with just an estimated $6.7 million.

    How did we end up with a nearly three-way tie at the top of the chart involving one new release while the other new release flatlined? Here are some of the factors at play.

    1. Star Power

    Tom Cruise is a curious case. He was king of the box office for two decades, and while he still sells well overseas, his movies outside the “Mission: Impossible” franchise open poorly at home. The dismal domestic performance of his “The Mummy” this summer is why no one expected much from “American Made.” Plus, while Cruise is usually tireless in promoting his films, he didn’t do much to plug this one, since he’s been busy working on a sixth “M:I” installment.

    Still, he’s a bigger draw than “Flatliners” stars Diego Luna and Ellen Page, or any of the many well-known stars in “Kingsman,” or any of the unknowns in “IT.” (He’s not bigger, however, than “IT” author Stephen King.)

    2. Age

    Cruise supposedly poisoned his own well 12 years ago with his advocacy of Scientology and his antics while he was courting Katie Holmes, but all that may be too long ago for today’s young moviegoers to remember. They simply may not care about Cruise because he’s a 55-year-old action star whose biggest hits are now nostalgia pieces.

    Then again, nostalgia may explain why older viewers haven’t yet abandoned him. Cinemascore reported that only 9 percent of “American Made” viewers were under 25 (PostTrak had the figure at 18 percent). Still, put Cruise in the cockpit of a 1980s airplane, and memories of “Top Gun” will send older viewers (especially older men, who made up nearly half the audience for “American Made”) to the ticket window.

    The nostalgia factor backfired with “Flatliners.” The movie was ostensibly a sequel to the 1990 movie of the same name, but only Kiefer Sutherland from that film returned, and there was no indication that he was playing the same character. The cast was clearly meant to appeal to younger viewers, but those viewers weren’t even born yet when the first film came out. Besides, the original wasn’t so beloved that older viewers would have been eager to see a sequel. So who was the new “Flatliners” for?

    3.Timing

    If you have a crowd-pleasing horror smash like “IT” still in theaters, why would you go see “Flatliners”? Maybe Sony thought the three weeks between their releases was enough time so that “Flatliners” would be safe? Guess not.

    As for “American Made,” it’s coming out just one week after spy thriller “Kingsman” and two weeks after similarly titled international thriller “American Assassin.” (By the way, if you’re wondering where all the teen and young-adult moviegoers were, it was at those films and “IT.”)

    3. Screen Count

    “American Made” and “American Assassin” are playing at an almost identical number of theaters (3,024 vs. 3,020), but the newer film averaged $5,627 per screen, better than any other wide-release film this weekend, while “Assassin” earned just $1,101 per screen. (It totaled an estimated $3.3 million, good for seventh place.) So “American Made,” which is playing on about 900 fewer screens than “IT” and 1,000 fewer than “Kingsman,” could have beaten both of them if it had been playing in just 53 more theaters.

    4. Execution

    “American Made” also tops all other current nationwide releases with its Rotten Tomatoes score. Its 87 percent fresh rating indicates overwhelmingly positive reviews. To the extent that the older viewers “American Made” targeted still care what critics say, that score must have given the movie a boost.

    Horror movies are usually critic-proof, but when a movie gets a rare 0 score at RT, even horror fans have to take notice. Sony must have known critics wouldn’t like “Flatliners,” as the studio declined to screen it for them in advance (a common marketing tactic for horror movies), but it also didn’t preview the movie for audiences on Thursday night. Between that omen and the unanimously bad reviews, savvy horror fans had to have guessed that “Flatliners” would be DOA.

    5. The Season

    Curiously, the same production company, Cross Creek, helped finance both of this weekend’s new wide releases. Maybe Cross Creek saw them as smart counter-programming to each other, with little overlap between their likely audiences (older and male vs. younger and female). Maybe the timing is a coincidence of distribution over which Cross Creek had no control.

    Still, neither movie on its own was enough to drum up much interest in theatrical moviegoing this weekend. The total domestic box office for all movies this weekend was about $90.6 million, making this the third lowest-grossing weekend of 2017 to date. It also makes the bigger box office totals of the last three weeks, driven by “IT” and “Kingsman,” look more like a brief reversal in the long slump that began in July than a permanent upswing. (Who knows, the pendulum could swing back again when “Blade Runner 2049” opens next weekend, but otherwise, October doesn’t look like a strong sales month.)

    The fact is, audiences need a good reason to get off the couch and spend big bucks on movie tickets and popcorn. Right now, the best reason to do that is still that creepy clown in the sewer.

  • Tom Cruise Reveals ‘Top Gun’ Sequel Title

    Do you feel the need for speed? Then, get ready — the “Top Gun” sequel is heading this way and it’s got a title!

    Tom Cruise revealed the news in an interview with Access Hollywood. “It’s called ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’” he said. So, not “Top Gun 2.” Cruise added, “I didn’t want a number.”

    The sequel will have the same tone and vibe (and soundtrack by Harold Faltermeyer) as the 1986 original. “Stylistically, it’s going to be the same,” Cruise said.

    “Aviators are back, the need for speed. We’re going to have big, fast machines … It’s going to be a competition film, like the first one.”

    Of course, Cruise is quite a bit older than he was, so Maverick won’t be a hotshot young pilot anymore. It seems more likely Maverick oversees a new group of trainees — and shows them what it takes to be a good wingman.

    “Top Gun: Maverick” doesn’t have a projected filming or release date, but Cruise has insisted “it is definitely happening.” He told an Australian TV program that filming would likely begin “in the next year.”

  • ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ Sequel Will Actually Be a Prequel

    Edge of Tomorrow“Edge of Tomorrow” is going back to some yesterday.

    A sequel for the hit sci-fi action movie starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt has been in the cards for some time, but now director Doug Liman reveals that the follow-up will actually be a prequel.

    Liman has never made a sequel (after “The Bourne Identity,” he bequeathed that franchise to Paul Greengrass). So, why do one for “Edge of Tomorrow”? As he told Collider, “That is the only sequel that I’m considering doing, and it’s because first of all the story is so amazing — much better than the original film, and I loved and loved the original film — and second of all, it’s a sequel that’s a prequel.”

    Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote the first movie, has said the idea for the sequel came from Cruise himself. The sequel-actually-prequel movie will be penned by “Race” writers Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse.

    “I had these intellectual ideas on how you should make a sequel that are unlike how anybody else makes a sequel, and this script and this idea fit perfectly into that idea,” Liman explained. “So it’s gonna revolutionize how people make sequels.”

    It’s hard to speculate what that revolution looks like. The story in the first movie involved time travel, with Cruise’s character re-living one day over and over again to acquire the skills necessary to defeat alien invaders. He trained with Blunt’s Sergeant Rita Rose Vrataski, known as the “Angel of Verdun” for her heroics in that battle. She also experienced the time loop there, so could the prequel follow her through Verdun? Or even go back to the Mimics’ initial invasion?

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  • Tom Cruise Lays Down the Law in ‘Jack Reacher: Never Go Back’ Trailer

    “Two things are gonna happen in the next 90 seconds…” That’s the start of a classic Cruise Control scene in the new “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” trailer, showing ‘s title character feeling no need for speed, even when handcuffed, as he calmly tells local law enforcement how it is.

    This first look at the “Jack Reacher” sequel comes via Entertainment Tonight, with co-star giving behind-the-scenes details about the plot.

    Cruise’s Reacher is a “drifter and former Army officer,” with Smulders playing Major Susan Turner, who took Reacher’s place as commander of the military police. But when Turner is arrested for “espionage,” Reacher believes she was set up, and heads out to help.

    “He’s alone and he’s sort of in his element, and then he couples up with me and all hell breaks loose,” Smulders says with a smile. “We’re on the run for this entire movie. We’re not spies. You really have to use your brains, you can’t rely on any tools.”

    Watch the trailer:

    UPDATE: Here’s the full first trailer, with more footage and without Entertainment Tonight or Cobie Smulders commentary:

    People recently shared first look photos from the movie, and director Edward Zwick told the magazine that both Cruise, 53, and Smulders, 34, did their own stunts. “I’ve never seen anybody more prepared both physically and mentally than Tom,” Zwick said. “He’s tireless and unbelievably focused.”

    “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” is scheduled for release October 21.

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  • How Tom Cruise Got Director Hired in 10 Minutes

    If the superstar of a blockbuster franchise wants something, he gets it. So when Tom Cruise called the Hollywood heavy hitters behind “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” with his handpicked selection for its director, he got it. Fast.

    “He left the room and came back 10 minutes later with the phone in his hand and said, ‘Okay, you’re directing the next ‘Mission: Impossible.’ And that was it,” director Christopher McQuarrie tells Made in Hollywood.

    There’s little to wonder why Cruise was eager to have McQuarrie join him for his fifth turn in the action flick. Previously they collaborated on 2012’s “Jack Reacher,” and when McQuarrie was working on the script for 2014’s “Edge of Tomorrow,” of which Cruise starred opposite Emily Blunt, the 53-year-old actor made the suggestion during a creative session one night.

    When McQuarrie agreed, rather casually, to take on role as director, he was surprised that Cruise wasted no time in enlisting him for work. “I figured that that would be a conversation we would have later,” McQuarrie recalls.

    “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” co-starring Alec Baldwin, Rebecca Fergusson, Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner opened last Friday. Watch the trailer below.

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  • ‘Mission: Impossible’s’ Greatest Stunts – the Supercut

    Nothing is impossible for Tom Cruise. In his nearly 20 years of surviving explosions, violating the laws of gravity and thwarting evildoers — all without a stunt double — his Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt continues more spectacular death defying feats in “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.”

    Of course, “Rogue Nation” sees the Hollywood star performing one of his most dangerous maneuvers yet—hanging off the side of an airplane while in flight.

    Watch our roundup of some of the best stunts he has performed in all five films in the franchise, and feel free to add some of your favorite moments in the comments.

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