Cary Elwes also thinks Tom Cruise saved Hollywood
Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One star Cary Elwes joins Steven Spielberg in crediting Tom Cruise with saving cinema
Tom Cruise has long been acknowledged as an era-defining movie star, but it was only during the COVID era that he evolved into the Protector of Cinema. He attempted to throw Christopher Nolan a bone by publicly seeing Tenet in theaters. His adamant insistence that Top Gun: Maverick have a strict theatrical release led Steven Spielberg to declare that he “saved Hollywood’s ass and [might] have saved theatrical distribution.” Now Warner Bros. is even calling him in to do damage control by promoting The Flash. All over the entertainment industry, stars are singing Cruise’s praises.
Count co-star Cary Elwes amongst their number. Elwes first appeared alongside Cruise more than 30 years ago in Days Of Thunder, and will share the screen with him again in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One. “Tom is someone I look up to a great deal,” Elwes tells The Independent. “I’m sure I speak for many when I say he saved our industry. We have to recognise that. He believed Top Gun: Maverick should be seen in cinemas, that the audience was there and they wanted to go back in and he was right and cinema chains stayed open because of him. He saved our industry. How many people can you say that about? Not many. He’s the last great movie star.”
No one can argue the power that Cruise wields in Hollywood, though some might argue that he’s not the only one who saved the industry. Jamie Lee Curtis, for instance, would like to throw her hat in the ring. She pointed out on The Late Late Show With James Corden that “my movies have made $2.5 billion in box office and that Tom Cruise isn’t the only one who saved show business.” (Curtis’ COVID-era projects include Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, which did well enough at the box office but also streamed simultaneously on Peacock. Everything Everywhere All At Once, for which Curtis won an Oscar, was of course a smash success at the box office, particularly for an indie.)
Regardless of who exactly is the true savior of cinema, Cruise has the additional distinction of being exactly “the same guy” he was back when they were shooting Days Of Thunder in 1990, according to Elwes. “He’s extraordinary. He’s remarkable. The stunts he does are literally death defying,” the Princess Bride alum gushes. “You hold your breath watching them and he finds them hysterically funny. That’s just what he loves to do.”