Will Tom Cruise take up art cinema?

Tom Cruise has recently agreed to star in a new film directed by Alejandro Iñárritu, the director of movies like Birdman and The Revenant, which is scheduled for release in the fall of 2026. This marks a new development compared to the recent phase of his career, which has been more focused on action blockbusters and mainstream productions. His involvement in an auteur film may indicate a desire to rediscover a more dramatic and sophisticated dimension of acting, similar to what characterized his early days. In the early 2000s, Cruise had collaborated with some of the most important figures in American cinema – including Paul Thomas Anderson, Francis Ford Coppola, and Stanley Kubrick – taking on highly ambitious roles in terms of performance. Things then took a different turn in 2005, with the release of his second film with Steven Spielberg, War of the Worlds, a period that coincided with the debate surrounding his connection to Scientology, the controversial religious organization founded by writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s.

Tom Cruise and Scientology

The actor had his first contact with Scientology through his wife Mimi Rogers, whose father held an important role within the movement. Even after their marriage ended, Cruise continued to be a prominent figure in the organization’s internal structure, which operates according to a pyramidal hierarchy and saw him as a way to gain greater public recognition. The movement is considered by many to be a cult and has never enjoyed a good reputation. However, Cruise’s connection to Scientology contributed to a gradual erosion of his image in the film industry. In 2006, for example, Paramount Pictures decided to terminate an exclusive contract that had lasted over a decade with the actor, citing reasons related to his behavior. From that point on, Cruise deliberately chose to regain ground by trying to project a different image of himself, focusing on action films and less demanding roles. Gradually, this approach had a positive impact on the films he was involved in. The strategy began to pay off with the installments following Mission: Impossible III, such as Ghost Protocol (2011) and Rogue Nation (2015), which showed a clear commercial rebound compared to previous films, helping to revive Cruise's career. In recent years, the American actor has once again become a key figure in the Hollywood film industry, and for this reason, it’s not out of the question that in the near future he may aim to take part in more sophisticated and less mainstream productions like those at the start of his career. In this context, it’s not surprising that the most important film festival in the world, Cannes, has recently given a lot of visibility to Cruise, including through masterclasses dedicated to him.

The importance of Top Gun: Maverick for Tom Cruise

As with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning this year, three years ago the Cannes Film Festival significantly contributed to the promotion of Top Gun: Maverick. At that time, Cruise even became one of the most respected faces in Hollywood due to his stance on having the film released in theaters instead of going straight to streaming. Tom Cruise is known for exercising a lot of control over the films he stars in, even though he doesn’t contribute to the script or direction. The goal was to revive the fortunes of movie theater owners, who were in serious crisis due to the pandemic. The film was a huge success and became one of the top-grossing films of 2022. «There are no adjectives to describe the importance of Top Gun: Maverick’s box office performance for the industry, arriving at a time when skeptics doubted cinema’s ability to attract audiences. It was a turning point,» reads the CNN. And yet, none of this was guaranteed. Top Gun: Maverick was considered a risky production due to its troubled development: it was supposed to be released in theaters in July 2019, but a series of setbacks – including the pandemic itself – delayed the release by three years. For this reason, even Steven Spielberg publicly thanked Tom Cruise for «saving Hollywood’s ass.»