HOLLYWOOD – A Tom Cruise backlash appears to have queered the box office for Mr. Cruise’ latest film Mission Impossible 3, which failed to measure up to expectations last weekend. MI3 earned roughly $48 million, domestic, making it No. 1 with a bullet, but the bullet was aimed at its feet.
Domestic box office for MI3 had been expected to fall between $60 and $75 million. Allowing for ever-increasing ticket prices, that return would have placed MI3 in the same company as its two predecessors, but without putting too blunt a point on things, it’s fair to say that MI3 drew 20 percent fewer people.
Rumblings of a Tom Cruise backlash began when Macaulay Culkin’s interview with Barbara Walters in March outdrew Mr. Cruise’ April interview with Diane Sawyer. Even Hollywood insiders realized that the biggest movie star in the world isn’t supposed to be trumped by a burned-out former child star whose best recent work was done in Michael Jackson’s bedroom.
The Cruise backlash rumblings were amplified on Internet message boards and forums, where there are more anti-Cruise comments than there are crawling things in Paris Hilton’s thong. Terms like “cocky little midget” and “goddamn freak of nature” were regularly applied to Mr. Cruise by people who consider him a lower form of life than Saddam Hussein or even George W. Bush.
People mocked Mr. Cruise’ height, his insufferable smugness, his goofy grin, his annoying use of the words dig and cool, his constant pimping for a “religion” that’s the equivalent of a Ponzi scheme, his embarrassing tonsil hockey displays with his fiance, his utter lack of style (he probably still listens to Air Supply), his desperate attempts to appear hip by wearing jeans most of the time, and the persistent rumors that he’s gay. (When Kirstie Alley said “Tom does everything 150 per cent, and fatherhood he does 300 per cent,” one wag commented, “The only thing Tom does 300% is Rob Thomas.”)
No wonder heads at Paramount began to fear that Mission Impossible 3 might turn out to be just that.
Mr. Cruise did his manic best to pimp MI3, leaving his fiance Kate “Don’t Call Her Katie” Holmes in the nursery while he bounced around the world attending premiers and baring his teeth. He even pulled his newborn daughter off the now-zaftig Ms. Holmes’ teats long enough to drag Ms. Holmes to a U.S. premier, where they behaved as though they hadn’t had sex in quite a while. Alas, Mr. Cruise’ finger in the dike wasn’t big enough to prevent audience leakage.
Despite the signs of a worrisome Tom Cruise backlash in the making, Paramount Pictures said it was not disappointed in MI3. What’s more, studio heads offered many explanations for the movie’s soft performance. The Kentucky Derby, Barry Bonds, the NBA playoffs—even Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance—all were alleged to have screwed the pooch at the box office.
Many people believe, however, that that dog will never hunt as well as it used to as long as Tom Cruise has the keys to the kennel.
In related news, Scientology centers across the country are offering five free tickets to Mission Impossible 3 to anyone who signs up for the $199 Introductory Auditing Course.
© The fine fucking print: The editorial content on this page is fictional. It is presented for satirical and/or entertainment purposes only. We cannot be held responsible for the actions of anyone who takes this sort of shit seriously. We also do not wish to be held responsible for any copyrighted material that sneaked onto this page when we weren’t looking. If you can prove that anything on this page belongs rightfully to you, we will happily take it down and return the unused portion. No questions asked.
