Summary

• Tom Cruise has largely made stunt and action-driven movies such Mission: Impossible - Fallout and Top Gun: Maverick in recent years.
• Cruise recently met with Warner Bros. execs to discuss collaborating on new film projects.
• It has been reported that the star is interested in more auteur-driven movies, moving away from traditional action tentpoles.

Tom Cruise movies may be about to change significantly thanks to a new partnership. Cruise is a movie star whose projects have collectively grossed more than $10 billion worldwide. In recent years, he has taken an increased interest in performing more and more challenging on-camera stunts, including hanging onto the side of a midair plane, in movies including the Mission: Impossible franchise and the smash hit legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick.

Variety recently ran a piece on the big financial swings that Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group is making. One such swing is a "strategic partnership" that is in the works with Cruise. According to the report, this January, Cruise met with executives Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy to discuss movie projects that the star and the company could collaborate on, with a focus on auteur-driven movies rather than action blockbuster tentpoles.

This Deal Could Resurrect A Long Lost Tom Cruise Era

For quite some time, it has seemed that Cruise has been content with leading big blockbuster tentpoles. Indeed, the only movie of his since 2007 that has been slightly more grounded was the 2017 action comedy American Made, which reteamed the star with Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman and still came with a $50 million price tag. Cruise is also attached to several movies that will play along those action blockbuster lines, including the Mission: Impossible 8 and an untitled space project, which also features Liman's involvement.

American Made followed a pilot that was drawn into a web of intrigue that included the CIA and the burgeoning Medellín Cartel.

However, the star made his fair share of dramas with a variety of celebrated auteur directors during the earlier period of his career. This included a starring role opposite Nicole Kidman in Stanley Kubrick's final movie, Eyes Wide Shut. While he wasn't nominated for an Oscar for that movie, three performances of his have earned him nods from the Academy, in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire, and Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July.

Even if Cruise shifts his career entirely toward that type of drama, this doesn't mean he will become less commercially viable. While his action blockbusters have broader worldwide appeal than auteur movies, he has had domestic commercial success with many of his more dramatic entries. This includes Jerry Maguire, which was the eighteenth highest-grossing movie of 1996, Interview with the Vampire, which was the tenth highest-grossing movie of 1994, and Rain Man, which was the fourth highest-grossing movie of 1989, just behind the huge blockbusters Lethal Weapon 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Batman.

Source: Variety