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American Made

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Rent American Made on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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American Made 's fast-and-loose attitude with its real-life story mirrors the cavalier -- and delightfully watchable -- energy Tom Cruise gives off in the leading role.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Domhnall Gleeson

Monty "Schafer"

Sarah Wright

Jesse Plemons

Sheriff Downing

Caleb Landry Jones

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More like this, movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

• Entertainment
• The True Story Behind the Movie <em>American Made</em>

The True Story Behind the Movie American Made

American Made , the new Tom Cruise crime drama out Sept. 29, has all the makings of a romp: drug running and arms smuggling. An FBI sting. Enough cold, hard cash to make the phenomenon of raining money a plausible ecological scenario. And a sex scene in the cockpit of a plane. That’s flying through the air. With one participant being the pilot. Did we mention it’s Tom Cruise?

If it sounds like an exercise in screenwriting excess, it’s not entirely — the film takes as its inspiration the true story of Adler Berriman “Barry” Seal, a TWA pilot who became a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel and, later, an informant for the DEA. It’s an ideal vehicle for Cruise, a.k.a. Maverick , whose mischievous swagger is accented here (literally) with a Louisiana drawl.

The movie hardly purports to be a documentary — director Doug Liman, who reteams with Cruise after Edge of Tomorrow , has referred to it as “a fun lie based on a true story.” And perhaps its looseness with the facts is for the best, as conflicting accounts make it difficult to get a clear picture on certain aspects of Seal’s seemingly made-for-the-movies life. It’s a thorny story that takes place against the backdrop of the Reagan-era War on Drugs and the notorious Iran-Contra affair , with Seal never hesitating to do business with opposing sides, so long as the payout was prodigious.

Here’s what we know about Seal — and what’s still up for debate.

MORE: Review: American Made Lets a Smug Tom Cruise Just Be Tom Cruise

Fact: Seal was an unusually talented young pilot.

According to Smuggler’s End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal — written by retired FBI agent Del Hahn, who worked on the task force that went after Seal in the ’80s — Seal obtained his student pilot license at 15 and became fully licensed at 16. His instructor was so impressed by his natural talent that he allowed him to fly solo after only eight hours of training. After serving in the National Guard and Army Reserve, he became a pilot with TWA, among the youngest command pilots to operate a Boeing 707.

Fact: He had a colorful personality.

As Cruise plays him, Seal was a blend of balls and braggadocio, fond of stunts and rarely registering the possibilities of danger or failure. According to Hahn, Seal’s high school yearbook photo was accompanied by the inscription, “Full of fun, full of folly.” His flight instructor described him as wild and fearless and generally unconcerned with the consequences of his actions. In an interview with Vice , Hahn says Seal was personable but “not as smart and clever as he thought he was.”

Partly Fiction: He was married to a woman named Lucy and they had three kids.

Sarah Wright plays Seal’s delightfully foul-mouthed wife in the movie, alternately exasperated by his schemes and enthralled by the riches they bring. In reality, Seal was married three times and had five children. He had a son and daughter with first wife Barbara Bottoms, whom he married in 1963 and subsequently divorced. He then married Linda McGarrh Ross in 1971, divorcing a year later, before marrying Deborah Ann DuBois, with whom he would go on to have three children, in 1974.

Fiction: The government first took notice of his smuggling when he was transporting Cuban cigars.

While the film depicts Seal’s foray into smuggling as beginning with Cuban cigars, his first documented run-in with the law for a smuggling offense took place in 1972 when he was one of eight people arrested for a plot to smuggle explosives out of the U.S. Though he wasn’t convicted, he lost his job with TWA. By 1976, according to Hahn, he had moved onto marijuana, and within a couple of years graduated to cocaine, which was less bulky, less sniffable by dogs and generally more profitable.

Fact: He smuggled drugs in through the Louisiana coast.

Seal and the pilots he recruited — including one he met in jail and his first wife’s brother — trafficked drugs over the border of his home state. As in the movie, he sometimes delivered them by pushing packed duffel bags out of his plane and into the Atchafalaya basin, to be retrieved by partners on the ground.

Mostly Fiction: Seal was chummy with the leaders of Colombia’s Medellín Cartel, including Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.

In the movie, Seal meets the cartel big wigs early on. In reality, Hahn writes, he did not deal with them directly, and they referred to him only as “El Gordo,” or “The Fat Man.” He finally met with them in April 1984 when he was working with the DEA on a sting operation intended to lead to their capture. (That operation would go awry when Seal’s status as an informant was revealed in a Washington Times cover story months later.)

Fact: Seal offered to cooperate with the DEA to stay out of prison.

The DEA was onto Seal for a long time before securing an indictment against him in March 1983 on several counts, including conspiracy to distribute methaqualone and possession with intent to distribute Quaaludes. As the movie suggests, there was some confusion among government agencies intent on taking him down.

His initial attempt to make a deal with a U.S. attorney, offering information on the Ochoa family, was rejected. But in March 1984, he traveled to Washington to the office of the Vice President’s Drug Task Force and cut a deal on the strength of his intel on and connections to the cartel.

Contested: He worked for many years alongside the CIA.

The film has Seal’s involvement with the CIA beginning in the late 1970s, relatively early on in his smuggling career. Under the handling of an agent played by Domhnall Gleeson, Cruise’s Seal gathers intelligence by flying low over Guatemala and Nicaragua and snapping photos from his plane. Later, the CIA turns a blind eye to his drug smuggling in exchange for his delivery of arms to the Contras in Nicaragua, who the U.S. government was attempting to mobilize against the leftist Sandinistas, who controlled the government. The movie even suggests that the CIA helped set Seal up with his very own airport in the small town of Mena, Ark.

According to Hahn’s book, rumors of Seal’s involvement with the CIA anytime before 1984 were just that — rumors. The only confirmed connection between Seal and the CIA turned up by Hahn’s research was in 1984, after Seal had begun working as an informant for the DEA. The CIA placed a hidden camera in a cargo plane Seal flew to pick up a cocaine shipment in Colombia. He and his copilot were able to obtain photographs that proved a link between the Sandinistas and the cartel, key intelligence for the Reagan administration in its plans to help overthrow the Sandinistas’ regime. But the final piece of the operation — a celebration of the successful cocaine transport, at which the Ochoas and Escobar were to be arrested all at once — never happened because of the revelation of Seal’s status as an informant.

Fact: Seal was assassinated in 1986.

Jorge Ochoa reportedly ordered a hit on Seal early in 1986. At the time, Seal was living in a Baton Rouge Salvation Army facility. Charges against him had not been fully erased as a result of his cooperation with the government, and he was sentenced to probation and six months residing at the treatment center. On the evening of Feb. 19, just after he parked his Cadillac, he was killed by two Colombian hitmen armed with machine guns.

Thanks in part to several witnesses, both men and four additional men who conspired in the killing were arrested within two days. Seal would go down as a legendary criminal, one of the most important witnesses in DEA history and — in Hollywood’s estimation, at least — a classic American story fit for only our most American onscreen hero.

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, american made.

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The makers of the based-on-a-true-story black comedy "American Made" fail to satisfactorily answer one pressing question: why is CIA operative and Colombia drug-runner Barry Seal's story being told as a movie and not a book? What's being shown in this film that couldn't also be expressed in prose? 

In telling the true story of American airplane pilot Barry Seal ( Tom Cruise ), writer Gary Spinelli and director Doug Liman ("Edge of  Tomorrow ," " Jumper ") choose to overstimulate viewers rather than challenge them. They emphasize Barry's charm, the exotic nature of his South American trade routes, and the rapid escalation of events that ultimately led to his downfall. Cruise's smile is, in this context, deployed like a weapon in Liman and Spinelli's overwhelming charm offensive. You don't get a lot of psychological insight into Barry's character, or learn why he was so determined to make more money than he could spend, despite conflicting pressures from Pablo Escobar's drug cartel and the American government to either quit or collude.

But you do get a lot of shots of Cruise grinning from behind aviator glasses in extreme close-ups, many of which are lensed with hand-held digital cameras that show you the wilds of Nicaragua and Colombia through an Instagram-cheap green/yellow filter. "American Made" may be superficially a condemnation of the hypocritical American impulse to take drug suppliers' money with one hand and chastise users with the other. But it's mostly a sensational, sub-"Wolf of Wall Street"-style true crime story that attempts to seduce you, then abandon you.

The alarming pace of Barry's narrative, designed to put Cruise’s charisma front and center, keeps viewers disoriented. It's often hard to understand Barry's motives beyond caricature-broad assumptions about his (lack of) character. In 1977, Barry agrees to fly over South American countries and take photos of suspected communist groups using a spy plane provided by shadowy CIA pencil-pusher Schafer ( Domhnall Gleeson ). Barry is impulsive, or so we're meant to think based on an incident where he wakes up a sleeping co-pilot by abruptly sending a commercial airliner into a nosedive. This scene may explain why Barry grins like a lunatic as he explains to his wife Lucy ( Sarah Wright ) that he'll figure out a way to pay out of pocket for his family's health insurance once he opens an independent shipping company called "IAC" (Get it? IAC - CIA?).

Barry's impetuousness does not, however, explain why he flies so low to land when he takes his photographs. Or why he doesn't immediately reach out to Schafer when he's kidnapped and forced by Escobar (Mauricio Mejia) and his Cartel associates to deliver hundreds of pounds of cocaine to the United States. Or why Barry thinks so little of his wife and kids that he packs their Louisiana house up one night without explanation, and moves them to a safe-house in Arkansas. There's character-defining insanity, and then there's "this barely makes sense in the moment when it is happening" crazy. Barry often appears to be the latter kind of nutbar.

There are two types of people in "American Made": the kind that work and the kind that get worked over. It's easy to tell the two apart based on how much screen-time Spinelli and Liman devote to each character. Schafer, for example, is defined by the taunts he suffers from a fellow cubicle drone and his own tendency to over-promise. Schafer doesn't do real work—not in the filmmakers' eyes. The same is true of Escobar and his fellow dealers, who are treated as lawless salesmen of an unsavory product. And don't get me started on JB ( Caleb Landry Jones ), Lucy's lazy, Gremlin-driving, under-age-girl-dating, Confederate-flag-waving redneck brother.

But what about Lucy? She keeps Barry's family together, but her feelings are often taken for granted, even when she calls Barry out for abandoning her suddenly in order to meet up with Schafer. Barry responds by throwing bundles of cash at his wife's feet. The argument, and the scene end just like that, like a smug joke whose punchline might as well be,  There's no problem that a ton of cash can't solve .

"American Made" sells a toxic, shallow, anti-American Dream bill of goods for anybody looking to shake their head about exceptionalism without seriously considering what conditions enable that mentality. Spinelli and Liman don't say anything except,  Look at how far a determined charmer can go if he's greedy and determined enough . They respect Barry too much to be thoughtfully critical of him. And they barely disguise their fascination with broad jokes that tease Barry's team of hard-working good ol' boys and put down everyone else.

Sure, it's important to note that Barry ultimately meets a just end, one that's been prescribed to thousands of other would-be movie gangsters. But you can easily shrug off a little finger-wagging at the end of a movie that treats you to two hours of Tom Cruise charming representatives of every imaginable US institution (they don't call in the Girl Scouts, the Golden Girls or the Hulk-busters, but I'm sure they're in a director's cut). If there is a reason, good or bad, that "American Made" is a movie, it's that you can't be seduced by the star of " Top Gun " in a book. 

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

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Film credits.

American Made (2017)

Rated R for language throughout and some sexuality/nudity.

115 minutes

Tom Cruise as Barry Seal

Domhnall Gleeson as Monty 'Schafer'

Sarah Wright as Lucy Seal

Jesse Plemons as Sheriff Downing

Caleb Landry Jones as JB

Lola Kirke as Judy Downing

Jayma Mays as Dana Sibota

• Gary Spinelli

Cinematographer

• César Charlone
• Andrew Mondshein
• Christophe Beck

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The Mummy review – Tom Cruise returns in poorly bandaged corpse reviver

Framed as more of a superhero origin movie than ancient curse mystery, a messy plot unravels fast

B e afraid, for here it is … again … emerging waxily from the darkness. This disturbing figure must surely be thousands of years old by now, a princeling worshipped as a god but entombed in his own riches and status; remarkably well preserved. It is Tom Cruise, who is back to launch a big summer reboot of The Mummy, that classic chiller about the revived corpse from ancient Egypt, from which the tomb door was last prised off in a trilogy of films between 1999 and 2008 with the lantern-jawed and rather forgotten Brendan Fraser in the lead. And before that, of course, there were classic versions with Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee both variously getting the all-over St John Ambulance treatment.

Traditionally, The Mummy is a scary movie (though unserious) about taboo and transgression, based on the made-up pop myth about the mummy’s “curse” – which has no basis in the history of ancient Egypt, but is a cheeky colonialist invention, which recasts local objection to our tomb-looting as something supernatural, malign and irrational.

Yet that is not what this Mummy is about. It brings in the usual element of sub-Spielberg gung-ho capers, but essentially sees The Mummy as a superhero origin movie; or possibly supervillain; or Batmanishly both. The supporting characters are clearly there to be brought back as superhero-repertory characters for any putative Mummy franchise, including one who may well be inspired by Two-Face from The Dark Knight.

This has some nice moments but is basically a mess, with various borrowings, including some mummified bits from An American Werewolf in London. The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb: a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts. There are two separate ancient “tomb-sites” which have to be busted open: one in London and one in Iraq. (The London one, on the site of the Crossrail excavation, contains the remains of medieval knights identified as “crusaders” who have in their dead Brit mitts various strategically important jewels they have taken from Egyptians: who were subsequently buried in what is now Iraq. Erm, Egyptians in Iraq? Go figure. Perhaps it’s because they are evil and had to be taken out of the country, like CIA rendition of terror suspects.)

The Cruisemeister himself is left high and dry by plot lurches that trigger his boggle-eyed, WTF expression. In one scene, he is nude so we can see what undeniably great shape he’s in. The flabby, shapeless film itself doesn’t have his muscle-tone.

Cruise plays Nick Morton, an adorable rascal in the Iraqi warzone who goes around in a TE Lawrence headdress stealing antiquities to sell; well, it’s that or let them be destroyed. He’s helped by his exasperated buddy Chris (Jake Johnson), while Nick has already seduced beautiful expert Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) who in spite of herself is entranced by Nick’s distinctive cherubic handsomeness. Then they blunder across the extraordinary tomb of evil Egyptian sorceress Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) who has some kind of weirdo mind-meld experience with Nick. Her creepy spirit accompanies him back home where she is intent on getting that precious jewel to unlock her full power. Nick’s plane crashes, giving him the opportunity for some Mission: Impossible-type midair acrobatics, those gorgeous chops pulling some serious Gs.

Russell Crowe lumbers on at one stage, amply filling a three-piece suit, playing an archaeological expert and connoisseur of secret burial sites, who has some sinister connection with government agencies. Unlike Nick, he has no Indiana Jones-type heroism, and that formal attire of his signals that he does not have Nick’s kind of heroic looseness. He is a figure to be mistrusted, although when he reveals his name and his destiny, he is just a distraction – and silly.

In the end, having encouraged us to cheer for Tom Cruise as an all-around hero , the film tries to have it both ways and confer upon him some of the sepulchral glamour of evil, and he almost has something Lestat -ish or vampiric about him. Yet the film really won’t make up its mind. It’s a ragbag of action scenes which needed to be bandaged more tightly.

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A Tom Cruise Classic Based on a True Story Just Resurfaced as the No. 1 Movie on Netflix

Tom cruised his way to the top.

Tom Cruise , 61, has really been on a winning streak lately. Just last year, his action sequel Top Gun: Maverick became the second-highest grossing film of the year and it currently stands as the 12th highest-grossing film of all time . Now, it looks like the New York native is ready to dominate Netflix, too.

The actor’s 2017 film, American Made , was uploaded to Netflix a little over a week ago. Today, it moved into the top spot on Netflix's list of most-watched movies , where it currently sits above recent hits like Fair Play, Nowhere and Reptile .

Fans who love seeing Cruise show off his action skills certainly won't be disappointed by this thrilling comedy.

Based on a true story, American Made follows the life of Barry Seal (Cruise), a pilot who simultaneously works for the CIA while also smuggling drugs for the Medellín cartel. However, when his actions are discovered by the DEA, Seal must try to navigate his many allegiances, all the while avoiding jail time.

Upon its release in 2017, American Made was received positively by critics, earning an 85 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. The film also garnered over $13o million at the global box office.

American Made was directed by Doug Liman ( Mr. & Mrs. Smith ) and written by Gary Spinelli ( Impulse ). Along with Cruise, the film stars Domhnall Gleeson ( The Revenant ), Sarah Wright ( Parks and Recreation ), Jesse Plemons ( The Power of the Dog ), Caleb Landry Jones ( Get Out ), Lola Kirke ( Mistress America ), Jayma Mays ( Glee ), Alejandro Edda ( Fear the Walking Dead ), Benito Martinez ( The Shield ) and E. Roger Mitchell ( The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ).

We're moving this one to the top of our queue.

Tom Cruise Makes Extremely Rare Public Appearance with His Son, Connor, in New York

Stay up-to-date on all the top Netflix titles by subscribing  here .

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5 Reasons Why Tom Cruise’s ‘The Mummy’ Disintegrated at the Domestic Box Office

By Seth Kelley

Seth Kelley

News Editor, Online

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“ The Mummy ” has been buried.

This weekend, Universal’s latest opened at No. 2 domestically behind the second weekend of “Wonder Woman.” With Tom Cruise in the lead, the revival was poised to be a beat-the-heat, popcorn-flinging summer blockbuster, a nostalgia grab for millennial fans of the 1999 title, and the launchpad for the studio’s “Dark Universe” of monster movies.

With $174 million worldwide , “The Mummy” is far from the summer’s biggest flop. But the breakdown — $32.2 million domestic, $141.8 international — indicates that whatever “The Mummy” is selling, American audiences aren’t really buying.

What happened? Here are five takeaways that might do some of the explaining:

“Wonder Woman” is the movie of the moment

Between its first and second weekends, “Wonder Woman” saw only a 45% drop in ticket sales. That’s a feat matched by only a handful of superhero movies including “Batman Begins” in 2005, “Spider-Man” in 2002, and “The Amazing Spider-Man” in 2012. “Wonder Woman” is a critical and commercial success that has succeeded on essentially every measure, including being the most tweeted-about movie of the year so far. “The Mummy” simply couldn’t cut through the cultural zeitgeist in the same way.

Tom Cruise star power plays … overseas

Popular on Variety

Ah, the elusive “movie star.” Despite the obituaries and postmortems written about the term, it gets tossed around and attributed to Cruise to this day. Still, “The Mummy” continues a trend that Cruise is more bankable overseas than he is domestically. Cruise has been far from a sure thing lately in the U.S. — “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” and “Edge of Tomorrow” both opened to lower domestic totals than “The Mummy.” But those two recent releases ended up making $100 million and $270 million respectively at international markets. With his bankability overseas, it’s no question why Cruise is a prized possession for studios, but at least in the U.S.,  his star has dimmed.

Those gosh darn critics

Whether it be fan rebellion with “Suicide Squad” or studio attribution with “Baywatch,” critic aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes have become increasingly scrutinized for being reductive. “The Mummy” was the latest summer blockbuster hit with a rotten rating, this time 17%. This weekend, the aggregators did not possess the ability to save. A24’s “It Comes At Night” and Bleecker Street’s “Megan Leavey” both performed below expectations despite having critical support (86% and 80% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes). Exactly how much those sour ratings contributed to “The Mummy’s” overall box office total is up for debate, but it’s safe to say the conversation continues.

The “Dark Universe” hasn’t caught on yet

Universal has signed on big name talent like Cruise and Johnny Depp to headline its “Dark Universe” slate , a way to relaunch the monster movies on which the studio was built. The studio argues that, rather than comparing the movies to a Marvel or DC Comics universe, the public should consider each project as its own entity, but under the umbrella of a common genre. Perhaps it will be “The Bride of Frankenstein,” slated for 2019 with Bill Condon attached to direct, that will spark the public’s interest in the universe. But “The Mummy’s” inauspicious launch just didn’t do the trick.

Another IP revival bites the dust

“Baywatch,” “Alien,” and now “The Mummy” — all three are nostalgia-tized franchises that have seen feature film revivals hit theaters this summer, and all three are also titles that have now underperformed or flopped at the box office, especially in North America. Three makes a trend, as they say, but add to that list “King Arthur” (not a franchise so much as a familiar property, but a similar idea) and “Pirates of the Caribbean” (“revived” is a stretch, but it had been six years since the last installment) and you have something larger at work. To be clear, this is not a brand new trend, but rather one that persists. Last summer saw “Ghostbusters,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass” crumble. The year before, “Pan.”

If there’s one theme this summer’s box office has doubled down on so far, it’s that superhero movies still work — at least for now. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” was the first (and only) big hit of the summer until “Wonder Woman” came along. Beyond that, things get murky. The answer to the industry’s thirst for bankable originality is a billion dollar one. But, for now, it’s apparent that many of these retreads are worn.

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“He invited us to watch the movie”: Tom Cruise’s Arguably Boldest Role in His Life Required Permission from a Fast and Furious Star to Make it Happen

T om Cruise’s status as a bonafide action star means most of his roles require a certain boldness from the actor. However, Cruise’s performance in the 2008 satirical comedy film Tropic Thunder is arguably his boldest role precisely because it goes against his star persona. In the film, Cruise plays the role of a goofy studio executive Les Grossman.

One of the funniest scenes in the film depicts Grossman dancing to a hip tune. However, for Cruise to execute this scene, it required the permission of a Fast & Furious star. Given the popularity of Cruise’s role, particularly his dance routine in the film, viewers must be curious to learn why the action star required the permission of another star, and here is everything you need to know.

Tom Cruise’s Tropic Thunder Role Required Permission From Fast & Furious Star Ludacris

Tom Cruise ’s performance as studio executive Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder is one of the actor’s most understated roles as it goes against his image as an action star. However, Cruise delivers a memorable performance winning over viewers with the idiosyncrasies of a character who is despicable on paper.

One of the best examples of Cruise making the character likable is his dance routine to the tune of the song Get Back by Fast & Furious star Ludacris. However, to use the song in the film’s closing sequence, director Ben Stiller personally sought Ludacris’ permission.

During an appearance on the First We Feast YouTube channel’s Hot Ones show, Ludacris revealed the following:

“Not only did he seek approval, respectfully, he invited us to watch the movie before it came out and it was literally just me, him, and my management and we watched the whole movie.”

“The right man for the right role”: Keanu Reeves Replaces Tom Cruise in The Mummy Fanmade Trailer and It Certainly Looks Promising

Ludacris added that he was moved by Stiller’s gesture to screen the film for him. As a result, it is safe to say that one of the most iconic and hilarious scenes from the film featuring Cruise’s Grossman showing off his dance moves would not have materialized without Ludacris’ blessing.

How Tom Cruise Came Up With His Hilarious Tropic Thunder Role

During a separate interview with Esquire , director Ben Stiller opened up about how the character of Les Grossman came to be. Stiller revealed that Cruise came up with the character himself as he felt the plot needed a studio executive as the primary antagonist. He said:

“Tom Cruise had the idea to play Les Grossman in the movie. That part did not exist. He said, well, there’s no studio executive and that would be really fun to be that guy.”

Stiller also credited Cruise with coming up with the character’s looks and dance moves which are among the character’s most memorable traits. In a separate interview , Cruise himself confirmed that it was his idea to add a studio executive character to the script.

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In 2022, it was revealed that Cruise and frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie were reportedly working on a spin-off that would bring back the Les Grossman character. However, since then there have been no updates regarding the project. Cruise is currently busy with the eighth installment in his Mission: Impossible franchise so it will be interesting to see if he revisits one of his boldest roles in the future.

Tropic Thunder is streaming on Peacock.

Screen Rant

Tom cruise’s the mummy failure: 8 reasons why dark universe failed before it began.

Despite Tom Cruise taking the lead role, 2017’s The Mummy was a failure that stopped the Dark Universe from progressing, but why did it flop?

• The marketing for 2017's The Mummy was misleading and featured unimportant details, leading viewers to have false expectations.
• Tom Cruise's involvement in the film was wasted as his character lacked substance and did not showcase his talents.
• The characters in The Mummy were poorly developed, making it difficult for the audience to root for them and invest in their story.

2017's reboot of The Mummy was meant to launch a new franchise for Universal called the Dark Universe, but it failed for several reasons and was ultimately scrapped. That came as a huge shock, especially with megastar Tom Cruise in the lead role, fellow A-lister Russell Crowe on board, and a talented supporting cast including Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, and Marwan Kenzari. On paper, Dark Universe looked like a guaranteed success.

The reality just goes to show that, even with a massive budget and big names attached, movies can bomb if the other essential ingredients aren't right — and Cruise's The Mummy remake had so many fundamental ingredients missing that it was hard to ignore them all. Looking at the film objectively, it's easy to see why fans and critics panned it, as well as why the proposed franchise it was a platform for didn't progress. It may even be one of the most disappointing films of the 21st century, especially since it led to the Dark Universe concept being axed.

The Universal Dark Universe And 9 Other Abandoned Movie Franchises

8 the mummy's marketing was poor, posters, billboards, and trailers featured unimportant details.

The marketing for 2017's The Mummy was fairly uninspired and substandard in general, but there was one particularly irksome aspect of it. Whether it was a poster, a billboard, or a trailer, it all seemed to feature the eponymous Princess Ahmanet's eyes, each of which had an extra pupil. It suggested they were important and might grant her a mystical ability, but they turned out to be entirely inconsequential. Viewers were never given a chance to see what these intriguing eyes offered. She may as well have had completely normal eyes. The marketing was terribly misleading in that regard .

7 The Mummy Wastes Tom Cruise

The lead should have guaranteed its success.

Cruise an iconic and exceptional actor. Cruise has received three Academy Award acting nominations for Born on the Fourth of July , Jerry Maguire , and Magnolia . Although he's failed to win, that takes some talent. Sadly, The Mummy completely wastes his involvement by having play a paper-thin character with very little substance . He gets little to no opportunity to showcase his charm, and his talents dissolve into an almost perpetual whirlwind of generic action. Considering The Mummy is a Cruise vehicle with the superstar at the wheel, the actor may as well have taken the keys out of the ignition.

6 The Mummy Has Poor Characters

The characters are hard to root for.

Despite having the name of the monster in their titles, monster movies rely on great characters to succeed. Jaws , for instance, would be nothing without the palpable chemistry between Roy Scheider's Martin Brody, Robert Shaw's Quint, and Richard Dreyfuss' Matt Hooper. Likewise, Alien and Predator wouldn't be anywhere near as iconic without Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch and their memorable co-stars. A major problem in The Mummy is poor characters. If Cruise's Nick Morton is paper-thin, the supporting characters are microscopic. They're underdeveloped and neither interesting nor likable. It's actually difficult to want them to come out of the movie victorious .

5 Unfavorable Comparisons To Previous Versions

The mummy couldn't live up to its predecessors.

Any reboot, remake, or sequel risks being compared unfavorably to its predecessors, and 2017's The Mummy always had a tough road ahead in that regard. The classic Universal series starring the likes of Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. and even the horror comedy Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy are widely revered. Plus, 1999's The Mummy and its first sequel, 2001's The Mummy Returns , are beloved adventure films. The 2017 reboot doesn't live up to them in any way . It lacks the memorable characters, the scares, the humor, and everything you should want in a Mummy franchise film. In that sense, it was doomed from the start.

4 The Mummy Has Too Much Action

The action overshadows everything else.

In a movie like The Mummy , action is obviously essential. Without any action, the film would be unspeakably boring — more so than it already is — because there'd be no sense of urgency or peril. However, 2017's reboot of The Mummy goes way too overboard with its action . It feels like director Alex Kurtzman believes fans are only entertained by action scenes, so it barely slows down at any point during the film's run. Eventually, that makes the action seem dull. However, it also takes away from several other aspects of the story, like character development, suspense, dialogue, and scares.

3 Its Comedy Is Weird And Misplaced

Tom cruise tries too hard and too often.

Cruise has proven many times that he has perfectly passable comedy chops. 1983's Losin' It and Risky Business , 1988's Cocktail , 2008's Tropic Thunder , 2010's Knight and Day , and 2017's American Made are just some movies in which Cruise has shown his funny side. However, in The Mummy , on the few occasions he engages in dialogue, he tries too hard to be funny and does it too often . It doesn't work out — not just because The Mummy isn't a comedy but because the rest of the cast are playing darker or more serious characters and aren't remotely on the same page. It's misplaced and falls completely flat.

2 The Dark Universe Is Forced And Rushed

Henry jekyll should have been introduced later.

The Mummy was intended to be the opening installment in a franchise, Universal's Dark Universe. Everyone understood that, but it didn't need to be forced down audience's throats or feel rushed and contrived. To use a common phrase to describe it: it's a marathon, not a sprint. It was, therefore, deeply unnecessary for Russell Crowe's Henry Jekyll to be shoehorned into the movie as the Dark Universe's version of Nick Fury. It was even less necessary to see his transformation into Eddie Hyde, which could have been a big reveal at a later time. All it did was take away from The Mummy as a standalone entity.

1 The Mummy Isn't Scary

The titular creature just wasn't scary.

Arguably, the most crucial factor in The Mummy's failure — and its unfortunate failure to launch the Dark Universe — is that it simply isn't scary. A Mummy movie doesn't necessarily have to be scary. Indeed, the beloved Mummy movies starring Brendan Fraser weren't for the most part. However, when it's meant to be the platform from which a franchise called the Dark Universe is born, it should feature some classic and appropriately scary cinematic monsters . The movie promised a lot, but it lacked suspense, scares, and an eponymous antagonist who's remotely frightening. Ahmanet offers nothing in terms of scares at any point in 2017's The Mummy — and that's a real shame.

The Tom Cruise Role That Was Written With Tom Hanks in Mind

A tale of two Toms.

The Big Picture

• Tom Cruise showed a surprisingly seasoned and thoughtful approach to his film choices in the 1990s, working with prestigious directors on risky projects.
• Cameron Crowe originally wrote the role of Jerry Maguire with Tom Hanks in mind, but Hanks declined, giving Cruise the opportunity to showcase vulnerability in his performance.
• Cruise's comedic vulnerability in films like Risky Business and All the Right Moves proved that he could handle romantic roles, and Jerry Maguire showcased his ability to deliver surprising and powerful moments in a rom-com setting.

Tom Cruise is most closely associated with the action genre these days due to the success of Top Gun and Mission: Impossible , but in the 1990s, it seemed like he made it a goal to work with nearly every great filmmaker on a prestige project. Between Sydney Pollack ’s The Firm , Rob Reiner ’s A Few Good Men , Neil Jordan ’s Interview with the Vampire , and Stanley Kubrick ’s Eyes Wide Shut , Cruise showed a surprising amount of discretion in the risky projects that he joined. Ironically, the role that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor was Cameron Crowe ’s Jerry Maguire , which was a mainstream success and audience favorite. The film gave Cruise some of the most endearing, iconic, and hilarious moments of his entire filmography, but it wasn’t a role that was originally written with him in mind.

Jerry Maguire

Cameron crowe wrote ‘jerry maguire’ for tom hanks.

Crowe is among the foremost directors of romantic comedies, as his films tend to go beyond simply being crowd-pleasers to say something powerful about the nature of love, and what it means to be in a relationship. While he had proven his competence within the genre with the 1989 coming-of-age dramedy Say Anything and the ensemble project Singles , Jerry Maguire was arguably his most ambitious project to date. It was the type of film that relied upon an established movie star to show vulnerability, and Crowe had his sights set on which A-Lister he wanted in the role of the titular sports agent.

In 2017, Crowe told NBC Sports that the role “was originally written with Tom Hanks in mind,” and that he “had this wonderful conversation with Tom Hanks, and people were waiting in the next room for the answer.” Crowe found that he was “high on the Tom Hanks personality charisma.” However, Hanks was busy working on his directorial effort That Thing You Do! , and could not commit to Crowe’s project. Hanks would later joke that he “would like to think, however, that Tom Cruise owes me one dollar, and I’m still waiting for the check.”

Cruise was very complimentary of Hanks , stating that “as a fan of his, I would have been very interested to see what he would have done with that character.” However, Cruise was keen to note that he put significant effort into ensuring that the role could become his own. Cruise said that he “spent nine months with Cameron going back and forth developing” the characterization of Jerry. While the work that Cruise puts into the physical stunts within his action films is evident to anyone that watches them, the efforts he took to develop such a complex character were more subtle.

'Jerry Maguire' Lets Tom Cruise Get Vulnerable

On paper, Hanks seemed like a more obvious choice for the role. While he had a newfound prestige thanks to his back-to-back Academy Award wins for Best Actor in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump , he was still at his core a comedic actor that had shown his aptitude within the rom-com genre. Romantic comedies were huge in the ‘90s, but his collaborations with Meg Ryan in the films Joe Versus the Volcano , You’ve Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle were among the best. However, Hanks’ refusal gave Cruise the chance to give an uncharacteristically vulnerable performance that pushed him as an actor.

Tom Cruise Inspired Christian Bale's Performance in 'American Psycho'

Tom Cruise tends to take on drama roles and isn't generally associated with comedy, but he’s proven on more than one occasion that he’s much funnier than some of his fans might expect. Outside his iconic cameos in Tropic Thunder and Austin Powers in Goldmember , Cruise showed a comedic vulnerability in his early films Risky Business and All the Right Moves . In both films, he plays a teenager who bites off more than they can chew, and they end up making a lot of ill-advised decisions for the sake of what they perceive to be true love. These films showed that Cruise was willing to make himself the butt of a joke, and didn’t have the ego that he’s sometimes associated with. However, these skills were set aside in the immediate aftermath as Cruise focused on films with a more serious edge to them .

'Jerry Maguire' Is Proof That Tom Cruise Should Do More Romantic Movies

That level of vulnerability is something Hanks has utilized throughout his career, and a reason why his romantic comedies with Ryan are so endearing to this day. It makes perfect sense why he would have been someone that Crowe had in mind, but casting Cruise forced the Mission: Impossible star to show that same romantic vulnerability that had been absent in his filmography since the late 1980s. It was a choice that ended up making Jerry Maguire more surprising. Audiences would expect to see Hanks pouring out his heart to Renée Zellweger about how he feels, but seeing Cruise do it came as a shock, making the “you complete me” moment even more powerful.

When Jerry sets forth with his ambitious mission statement regarding his intentions for his company, it feels like his breakthrough will be accepted automatically, so it’s hilarious when his speech is met with a collective shrug from his co-workers. However, seeing Cruise descend into madness as Jerry digs himself deeper by ranting (and even stealing a fish) results in one of the funniest moments in the entire film. These sorts of physical gags are something that Hanks has done all the time, but Cruise had to show a wacky side of his personality that he hadn’t accessed since his adolescent roles.

Cruise continues to push the boundaries of his physicality as recently as 2023's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , and he’ll be doing the same thing for the next installment. However, Cruise is also 61 years old, and can’t be doing action films forever. Perhaps choosing to go back to the romantic comedy genre for the first time since Jerry Maguire would be the best choice for Cruise to prove that, even after all these years, he’s still one of the greatest movie stars in the world.

Jerry Maguire is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

Rent on Prime Video

Tom Cruise Gets His First Criterion Collection Movie Set for 4K UHD Release

Not a single film with Tom Cruise has been in the lauded Criterion Collection, until now.

• Tom Cruise's Risky Business joins the prestigious Criterion Collection, marking a pivotal moment in his career.
• The film is praised for blending tender romance with a sharp critique of capitalism, even if it's goofy fun on the surface.
• Criterion's release includes a 4K UHD restoration, special features, and interviews, making it a must-have for film and Cruise enthusiasts.

Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest Hollywood stars for four decades, and has starred in almost 50 movies, but until today, none of them have been represented in the most prestigious film collection in the world — the Criterion Collection . The home media distributor collects the greatest or most culturally important films of all time and immaculately restores them and curates magnificent special features. And now, Cruise's 1983 film Risky Business will be the 1,227th movie added to the collection.

The Criterion Collection announced its inclusion today, April 15, with the film being released in 4K UHD (and Blu-ray) on July 23. Their summary of the film, famous for its underwear lip-sync scene, reads as follows:

" A sly piece of pop subversion, this irresistible satire of Reagan-era materialism features Tom Cruise in his star-is-born breakthrough as a Chicago suburban prepster whose college-bound life spirals out of control when his parents go out of town for the week and an enterprising call girl (Rebecca De Mornay) invites him to walk on the wild side. While Cruise boogying in his briefs yielded one of the most iconic pop-cultural moments of the 1980s, it is the film’s unexpected mix of tender romance (enhanced by a moody synth score by Tangerine Dream) and sharp-witted capitalist critique that remains fresh and daring."

Risky Business

Risky business special features and other july releases for criterion.

It's an interesting choice for the Criterion Collection, with many other Cruise films being considered superior ( Collateral, Eyes Wide Shut, The Color of Money, Magnolia ). Of course, there are licensing issues to be considered, but there are certainly good reasons for the inclusion of Risky Business . It's the film that truly announced Cruise as a cinematic presence, while also playfully deconstructing the typical sex comedies that were so popular at the time ( Porky's, Revenge of the Nerds ). The special features are as follows.

• New 4K digital restorations of the director’s cut and the original theatrical release, supervised and approved by director Paul Brickman and producer Jon Avnet, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary for the original theatrical release featuring Brickman, Avnet, and actor Tom Cruise
• New interviews with Avnet and casting director Nancy Klopper
• New conversation between editor Richard Chew and film historian Bobbie O’Steen
• The Dream Is Always the Same: The Story of “Risky Business,” a program featuring interviews with Brickman, Avnet, cast members, and others
• Screen tests with Cruise and actor Rebecca De Mornay
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

Why Tom Cruise Won't Return as Jack Reacher

Risky Business joins several other films for Criterion's July releases. There's a 4K UHD restoration of the all-time classic, Le Samouraï , perhaps the coolest film ever made. Farewell, My Concubine is getting a release after its beautiful restoration in 2023. Black God, White Devil will get a release, finally bringing the brilliant Brazilian Western to the masses. Wim Wenders' astonishing 2023 film Perfect Days will get a home media release from Criterion, as well. Perhaps the best inclusion of them all, however, is Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid , Sam Peckinpah's underrated, melancholic Western masterpiece with a score from Bob Dylan. You can pre-order Risky Business below:

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Tom Cruise Film List

• Movies or TV
• IMDb Rating
• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. Taps (I) (1981)

PG | 126 min | Drama

Military cadets take extreme measures to ensure the future of their academy when its existence is threatened by local condo developers.

Director: Harold Becker | Stars: George C. Scott , Timothy Hutton , Ronny Cox , Sean Penn

Votes: 20,089 | Gross: $35.86M

2. Endless Love (1981)

R | 116 min | Drama, Romance

Parental disapproval of a passionate romance between two teenagers leads to arguments, circumstance, insanity and tragedy.

Director: Franco Zeffirelli | Stars: Brooke Shields , Martin Hewitt , Shirley Knight , Don Murray

Votes: 9,573 | Gross: $31.18M

3. The Outsiders (1983)

PG | 91 min | Crime, Drama

In a small Oklahoma town in 1964, the rivalry between two gangs, the poor Greasers and the rich Socs, heats up when one gang member accidentally kills a member of the other.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: C. Thomas Howell , Matt Dillon , Ralph Macchio , Patrick Swayze

Votes: 97,463 | Gross: $25.60M

4. Risky Business (1983)

R | 99 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

A Chicago teenager is looking for fun at home while his parents are away, but the situation quickly gets out of hand.

Director: Paul Brickman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Rebecca De Mornay , Joe Pantoliano , Richard Masur

Votes: 99,787 | Gross: $63.50M

5. Losin' It (1982)

R | 100 min | Comedy, Drama

Set in 1965, four rowdy teenage guys travel to Tijuana, Mexico for a night of partying when they are joined by a heartbroken housewife who is in town seeking a quick divorce.

Director: Curtis Hanson | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jackie Earle Haley , John Stockwell , John P. Navin Jr.

Votes: 5,226 | Gross: $1.25M

6. All the Right Moves (1983)

R | 91 min | Drama, Romance, Sport

An ambitious young football star is trapped in a dying mill town--unless his gridiron skills can win him a way out.

Director: Michael Chapman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Lea Thompson , Craig T. Nelson , Charles Cioffi

Votes: 20,392 | Gross: $17.23M

7. Legend (1985)

PG | 94 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Romance

A young man must stop the Lord of Darkness from destroying daylight and marrying the woman he loves.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise , Mia Sara , Tim Curry , David Bennent

Votes: 72,435 | Gross: $15.50M

8. Top Gun (1986)

PG | 109 min | Action, Drama

As students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school compete to be best in the class, one daring young pilot learns a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom.

Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise , Tim Robbins , Kelly McGillis , Val Kilmer

Votes: 502,362 | Gross: $179.80M

9. The Color of Money (1986)

R | 119 min | Drama, Sport

Fast Eddie Felson teaches a cocky but immensely talented protégé the ropes of pool hustling, which in turn inspires him to make an unlikely comeback.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Paul Newman , Tom Cruise , Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio , Helen Shaver

Votes: 93,237 | Gross: $52.29M

10. Rain Man (1988)

R | 133 min | Drama

After a selfish L.A. yuppie learns his estranged father left a fortune to an autistic-savant brother in Ohio that he didn't know existed, he absconds with his brother and sets out across the country, hoping to gain a larger inheritance.

Director: Barry Levinson | Stars: Dustin Hoffman , Tom Cruise , Valeria Golino , Gerald R. Molen

Votes: 546,414 | Gross: $178.80M

11. Cocktail (1988)

R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

A talented New York City bartender takes a job at a bar in Jamaica and falls in love.

Director: Roger Donaldson | Stars: Tom Cruise , Bryan Brown , Elisabeth Shue , Lisa Banes

Votes: 91,822 | Gross: $78.22M

12. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

R | 145 min | Biography, Drama, War

The biography of Ron Kovic . Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country for which he fought.

Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Tom Cruise , Bryan Larkin , Raymond J. Barry , Caroline Kava

Votes: 115,894 | Gross: $70.00M

13. Days of Thunder (1990)

PG-13 | 107 min | Action, Drama, Sport

A young hot-shot stock car driver gets his chance to compete at the top level.

Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise , Nicole Kidman , Robert Duvall , Randy Quaid

Votes: 96,369 | Gross: $82.67M

14. Far and Away (1992)

PG-13 | 140 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance

A young Irish couple flee to the States, but subsequently struggle to obtain land and prosper freely.

Director: Ron Howard | Stars: Tom Cruise , Nicole Kidman , Thomas Gibson , Robert Prosky

Votes: 68,310 | Gross: $58.88M

15. A Few Good Men (1992)

R | 138 min | Drama, Thriller

Military lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee defends Marines accused of murder. They contend they were acting under orders.

Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jack Nicholson , Demi Moore , Kevin Bacon

Votes: 287,212 | Gross: $141.34M

16. The Firm (1993)

R | 154 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

A young lawyer joins a prestigious law firm only to discover that it has a sinister dark side.

Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jeanne Tripplehorn , Gene Hackman , Hal Holbrook

Votes: 147,643 | Gross: $158.35M

17. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

R | 123 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

A vampire tells his epic life story: love, betrayal, loneliness, and hunger.

Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Brad Pitt , Tom Cruise , Antonio Banderas , Kirsten Dunst

Votes: 347,308 | Gross: $105.26M

18. Mission: Impossible (1996)

PG-13 | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

An American agent, under false suspicion of disloyalty, must discover and expose the real spy without the help of his organization.

Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jon Voight , Emmanuelle Béart , Henry Czerny

Votes: 470,140 | Gross: $180.98M

19. Jerry Maguire (1996)

R | 139 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

When a sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it, he decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent agent with the only athlete who stays with him and his former colleague.

Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Tom Cruise , Cuba Gooding Jr. , Renée Zellweger , Kelly Preston

Votes: 286,939 | Gross: $153.95M

20. Magnolia (1999)

R | 188 min | Drama

An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jason Robards , Julianne Moore , Philip Seymour Hoffman

Votes: 328,375 | Gross: $22.46M

21. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

R | 159 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

A Manhattan doctor embarks on a bizarre, night-long odyssey after his wife's admission of unfulfilled longing.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Tom Cruise , Nicole Kidman , Todd Field , Sydney Pollack

Votes: 374,933 | Gross: $55.69M

22. Mission: Impossible II (2000)

PG-13 | 123 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

IMF agent Ethan Hunt is sent to Sydney to find and destroy a genetically modified disease called "Chimera".

Director: John Woo | Stars: Tom Cruise , Dougray Scott , Thandiwe Newton , Ving Rhames

Votes: 377,573 | Gross: $215.41M

23. Vanilla Sky (2001)

R | 136 min | Fantasy, Mystery, Romance

A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover.

Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Tom Cruise , Penélope Cruz , Cameron Diaz , Kurt Russell

Votes: 285,612 | Gross: $100.61M

24. Minority Report (2002)

PG-13 | 145 min | Action, Crime, Mystery

John works with the PreCrime police which stop crimes before they take place, with the help of three 'PreCogs' who can foresee crimes. Events ensue when John finds himself framed for a future murder.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Tom Cruise , Colin Farrell , Samantha Morton , Max von Sydow

Votes: 584,153 | Gross: $132.07M

25. Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

PG-13 | 94 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

Upon learning that his father has been kidnapped, Austin Powers must travel to 1975 and defeat the aptly named villain Goldmember, who is working with Dr. Evil.

Director: Jay Roach | Stars: Mike Myers , Beyoncé , Seth Green , Michael York

Votes: 222,847 | Gross: $213.31M

26. The Last Samurai (2003)

R | 154 min | Action, Drama

Nathan Algren, a US army veteran, is hired by the Japanese emperor to train his army in the modern warfare techniques. Nathan finds himself trapped in a struggle between two eras and two worlds.

Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Tom Cruise , Ken Watanabe , Billy Connolly , William Atherton

Votes: 470,873 | Gross: $111.11M

27. Collateral (2004)

R | 120 min | Action, Crime, Drama

A cab driver finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles.

Director: Michael Mann | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jamie Foxx , Jada Pinkett Smith , Mark Ruffalo

Votes: 432,965 | Gross: $101.01M

28. War of the Worlds (2005)

PG-13 | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

An alien invasion threatens the future of humanity. The catastrophic nightmare is depicted through the eyes of one American family fighting for survival.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Tom Cruise , Dakota Fanning , Tim Robbins , Miranda Otto

Votes: 475,055 | Gross: $234.28M

29. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

PG-13 | 126 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

IMF agent Ethan Hunt comes into conflict with a dangerous and sadistic arms dealer who threatens his life and his fiancée in response.

Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Tom Cruise , Michelle Monaghan , Ving Rhames , Philip Seymour Hoffman

Votes: 390,612 | Gross: $134.03M

30. Lions for Lambs (2007)

R | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

Injuries sustained by two Army rangers behind enemy lines in Afghanistan set off a sequence of events involving a congressman, a journalist and a professor.

Director: Robert Redford | Stars: Tom Cruise , Meryl Streep , Robert Redford , Michael Peña

Votes: 52,690 | Gross: $15.00M

31. Valkyrie (2008)

PG-13 | 121 min | Drama, History, Thriller

A dramatization of the July 20, 1944 assassination and political coup plot by desperate renegade German Army officers against Adolf Hitler during World War II.

Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: Tom Cruise , Bill Nighy , Carice van Houten , Kenneth Branagh

Votes: 259,178 | Gross: $83.08M

32. Tropic Thunder (2008)

R | 107 min | Action, Comedy, War

Through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.

Director: Ben Stiller | Stars: Ben Stiller , Jack Black , Robert Downey Jr. , Jeff Kahn

Votes: 447,855 | Gross: $110.52M

33. Knight and Day (2010)

PG-13 | 109 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

A young woman gets mixed up with a disgraced spy who is trying to clear his name.

Director: James Mangold | Stars: Tom Cruise , Cameron Diaz , Peter Sarsgaard , Jordi Mollà

Votes: 210,286 | Gross: $76.42M

34. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

PG-13 | 132 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

The IMF is shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name.

Director: Brad Bird | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jeremy Renner , Simon Pegg , Paula Patton

Votes: 528,296 | Gross: $209.40M

35. Rock of Ages (2012)

PG-13 | 123 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical

A small-town girl and a city boy meet on the Sunset Strip while pursuing their Hollywood dreams.

Director: Adam Shankman | Stars: Julianne Hough , Diego Boneta , Tom Cruise , Alec Baldwin

Votes: 81,656 | Gross: $38.52M

36. Jack Reacher (2012)

PG-13 | 130 min | Action, Mystery, Thriller

A homicide investigator digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper responsible for a mass shooting.

Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars: Tom Cruise , Rosamund Pike , Richard Jenkins , Werner Herzog

Votes: 364,943 | Gross: $80.07M

37. Oblivion (I) (2013)

PG-13 | 124 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

A veteran assigned to extract Earth's remaining resources begins to question what he knows about his mission and himself.

Director: Joseph Kosinski | Stars: Tom Cruise , Morgan Freeman , Andrea Riseborough , Olga Kurylenko

Votes: 552,969 | Gross: $89.02M

38. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

PG-13 | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.

Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Emily Blunt , Bill Paxton , Brendan Gleeson

Votes: 736,499 | Gross: $100.21M

39. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

PG-13 | 131 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

Ethan and his team take on their most impossible mission yet when they have to eradicate an international rogue organization as highly skilled as they are and committed to destroying the IMF.

Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars: Tom Cruise , Rebecca Ferguson , Jeremy Renner , Simon Pegg

Votes: 410,811 | Gross: $195.04M

40. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

PG-13 | 118 min | Action, Crime, Drama

Jack Reacher must uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy in order to clear his name while on the run as a fugitive from the law.

Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Tom Cruise , Cobie Smulders , Aldis Hodge , Robert Knepper

Votes: 175,228 | Gross: $58.70M

41. The Mummy (2017)

PG-13 | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

An ancient Egyptian princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension.

Director: Alex Kurtzman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Sofia Boutella , Annabelle Wallis , Russell Crowe

Votes: 206,124 | Gross: $80.10M

42. American Made (2017)

R | 115 min | Action, Comedy, Crime

The story of Barry Seal, an American pilot who became a drug-runner for the CIA in the 1980s in a clandestine operation that would be exposed as the Iran-Contra Affair.

Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Domhnall Gleeson , Sarah Wright , Jesse Plemons

Votes: 208,073 | Gross: $51.34M

43. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

PG-13 | 147 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team, along with some familiar allies, race against time after a mission gone wrong.

Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars: Tom Cruise , Henry Cavill , Ving Rhames , Simon Pegg

Votes: 378,001 | Gross: $220.16M

44. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

PG-13 | 130 min | Action, Drama

After thirty years, Maverick is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN's elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it.

Director: Joseph Kosinski | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jennifer Connelly , Miles Teller , Val Kilmer

Votes: 695,899 | Gross: $718.73M

45. Methuselah

Short, Action, Adventure | Filming

An action/adventure story centered on a 1,000-year-old man who has used his time on the planet to develop an unparalleled set of survival skills.

Director: Danny Boyle

46. Luna Park (I)

Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi | Announced

A group of renegade employees who venture to the moon to steal an energy source.

Director: Doug Liman

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Chris Pine Says He Grew Up Idolizing Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman (Exclusive)

The actor also named Lee Marvin and Walter Brennan among some of his early influences

Karwai Tang/WireImage; Monica Schipper/Getty; Daniele Venturelli/WireImage

As a burgeoning actor, Chris Pine had his sights set high.

Speaking with PEOPLE on Wednesday, April 24, at the premiere of his directorial debut Poolman in Los Angeles, the 43-year-old named several actors who got their start in Hollywood before him who he looked up to when he was growing up.

"I remember being 8 years old and dressing up in a fedora and a three-piece suit and pretending to be a character in Bugsy Malone . Or taking a pencil and pretending I was Tom Cruise in Top Gun ," Pine says. "So all of the business appealed to me and all the characters."

"But certainly ... I guess I simultaneously wanted to be Harrison Ford and also wanted to be like Gary Oldman or Lee Marvin , or Walter Brennan," he adds.

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.

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Set in Los Angeles, Poolman follows pool attendee Darren Barrenman (Pine), "a native Los Angeleno who spends his days looking after the pool of the Tahitian Tiki apartment block and fighting to make his hometown a better place to live," according to a synopsis of the film, which Pine also co-wrote.

"When he is tasked by a femme fatale to uncover the truth behind a shady business deal, Darren enlists the help of his friends to take on a corrupt politician and a greedy land developer," the synopsis adds. "His investigation reveals a hidden truth about his beloved city and himself."  

Pine recalled to PEOPLE at Wednesday's premiere how he "grew up in a specific kind of L.A. that was kind of on the Boulevard of Dreams and kind of on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams."

"I saw the highs and lows of the industry. And I grew up around people that were living the dream and people that desperately wanted to be in the dream," he says. "So it's no accident that everybody in this film, even the bad guy, was a musical-theater major that came out here to do a pilot."

"My girlfriend [in the movie] was once on Melrose Place and is now a Pilates instructor, and my best friend Jack Dennisoff, [played by] Danny DeVito , is a B-movie horror director that never really made it," Pine continues. "So this is really my tribute to that part of Los Angeles."

That doesn't mean the city doesn't have its downsides for him — in fact, he tells PEOPLE that what "frustrates" him about L.A. is "everything."

"The fact that we don't have above-ground public transportation, that the red cars were ripped out, that we don't really have a deep appreciation for some of the fabulous architecture that we have here, that we're building buildings right now that I feel like are built for practicality more than they are in the spirit of beauty," the Wonder Woman actor explains.

"That disappoints me, but it is my home," Pine adds.

Poolman hits theaters May 10.

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