Now we know why Tom Cruise is always at the movies

Tom Cruise is a Hollywood megastar, known for his charisma, work ethic and jaw-dropping stunts – but he’s also known to be a big fan of movies, full stop.

Indeed ‘see you at the movies’ has virtually become a calling card of his after he used it to sign off a special message to Top Gun: Maverick viewers in 2022, from the wing of a plane 10,000 feet in the air while filming Mission: Impossible. As you do.

And he’s not just excited by his own movies, which also include Edge of Tomorrow, Eyes Wide Shut and Jerry Maguire, but everyone’s movies.

In fact, he always seems to be there – and for a man as busy as Cruise, 62, has been in recent years, it’s a wonder he has the time.

For example, he posed with IMAX tickets purchased to see Ryan Coogler’s vampire flick Sinners in April in London, sharing with his 13.4million Instagram followers: ‘Congratulations Ryan, Michael, and to the entire cast and crew. Must see in a cinema and stay through the end credits!’

This was squeezed in just before he jetted off to Asia to begin Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’s extensive press tour.

And on Thursday night, Sinners leading man Michael B Jordan returned the favour by attending the London premiere for Cruise’s new release.

Last July, movie stalwart Cruise took a picture with former Top Gun: Maverick co-star Glen Powell, both holding branded popcorn containers, at a special screening for the Hit Man actor’s new release Twisters.

‘Fun night with friends, watching a movie!!’ he added in the caption.

And in summer 2023, there was no way he and Mission: Impossible director and collaborator Christopher McQuarrie were missing out on the other blockbusters opening alongside Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.

The duo posed with tickets for both Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – congratulating Harrison Ford on 40 years as ‘one of the most iconic characters in cinema history’ – as well as the ultimate double feature of Oppenheimer and Barbie.

But now filmmaker McQuarrie has explained why Cruise prioritises heading to the cinema (the man lives, eats and breathes films after all) – and it’s both very sensible and quite wholesome.

During his rendezvous event at Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, the director reflected on the ongoing struggle for films to do well with theatrical releases in the streaming era, and how it was ‘essential’ that both indie films and multi-million-dollar movies fight to keep it alive.

‘One of the problems with contemporary cinema – particularly Hollywood – is over the course of my career I’ve watched it develop into a competition,’ he told the audience, including Metro.

 ‘It has become about who crushes whom and for how much. We should not be competing with one another, we should all be serving one another. We should be working for this, we should be working to serve the mechanism,’ he added.

McQuarrie then went on to explain how he looked at cinema releases ‘in terms of deposits and withdrawals’ as to how the business could be sustained – and successful – for all different sizes of films.

‘Top Gun: Maverick is a deposit. That is something where we are doing what we can to bring as many people into the theatre, and to keep that mechanism thriving so that a film like [Oscar-winning] Anora can come and be in theatres and take the time to grow.

‘That’s what we want to see happen. So it’s absolutely vital,’ he insisted.

‘That’s why you see Tom going out and promoting movies that other people would regard as his competition. We are not competing with anyone. Tom Cruise is competing with no one but himself.

‘He understands that nobody wins unless everybody wins.’

And this makes absolutely perfect sense.

McQuarrie also lamented movies serving a particular fanbase or brand for ‘not enriching the audience and their understanding of cinema’.

He also spoke about film fans being ‘cut off’ nowadays from the history of cinema.

‘When you look at streamers – and I don’t begrudge them at all – I would appreciate if the home page when you turned on Netflix didn’t just shove their material at you but also put classic cinema to you and encouraged you,’ he suggested.

The Usual Suspects scribe also shared his dismay at meeting people who had never seen The Big Country or Cool Hand Luke and whose ‘history of cinema begins at Star Wars or begins at Pirates of the Caribbean’ – which he also hastened to add he ‘adored’.

However he said claims that streamers were saving cinema ‘sound a little hollow’ to him when he sees classic films, ‘intentionally or not’, buried ‘under sedimentary layer of sedimentary layer of contemporary content’.

Summing up his and Cruise’s crusade, he added: ‘If you want to save the concept of cinema – promote it, resurrect it. There are great films there that deserve to be seen by this generation.’

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is believed to be one of the most expensive films ever made, with reports of a budget around $400m (£301m).

While the seventh instalment in 2023 made $571.1m (£429.8m) worldwide, it was still considered a box office disappointment, so Cruise will be hoping his fans and Hollywood friends turn out to support his latest endeavour.

And save movies alongside him in the process.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, May 21. It releases in the US on Friday, May 23.

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