Steven Spielberg says Tom Cruise "saved theatrical distribution"
At the Academy Awards Luncheon, Steven Spielberg opined that Tom Cruise "saved Hollywood's ass"
Sure, back in the summer of 2020, Tom Cruise proclaimed that big screens were back with the release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, despite the fact that plenty of theaters around the world were still closed under lockdown. Now, Steven Spielberg is crediting Cruise himself with reviving cinema.
“You saved Hollywood’s ass and you might have saved theatrical distribution,” the Jurassic Park director says in a video shared by documentary filmmaker Kartiki Gonsalves. “Seriously, Top Gun: Maverick might have saved the entire theatrical industry.”
Spielberg previously directed Cruise in 2002's Minority Report and 2005's War Of The Worlds. The duo was reunited at the recent Oscar nominees luncheon; Top Gun: Maverick will be facing off against The Fabelmans for best picture.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, the sequel to the 1986 classic Top Gun raked in $1.48 billion worldwide at the box office last year and didn’t arrive on streaming until seven months after its May 2022 release. However, it wasn’t the first flick to hit the ten-figure milestone in the pandemic era. Released in December 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home had a haul of $1.92 billion. Avatar: The Way Of Water has since surpassed both movies, taking in $2.2 billion so far.
Per Variety, Paramount credits fans returning for repeat viewings for Top Gun: Maverick’s long legs, writing, “By its fourth weekend in North American movie theaters, 16% of the audience had returned more than once and 4% had returned three times or more.” In the Los Angeles Times’ anonymous survey of Oscar voters, one producer shared that he had watched the film a total of 13 times, at the expense of checking out other options from the Academy’s longlist.
Given that whole “father of the modern blockbuster” thing, it doesn’t seem like Spielberg had too much to be worried about in the first place. But hey, Cruise did write the most memorable six-word story since Ernest Hemingway: “Big Movie. Big Screen. Loved it.”