Tom Cruise Is Furious About The Upcoming Mission: Impossible Release
Tom Cruise is allegedly upset that IMax theaters are placing Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer ahead of Mission: Impossible 7.
Tom Cruise is facing his most impossible mission yet: stealing back all the IMAX screens from Christopher Nolan. As reported by Puck, Nolan’s Oppenheimer has locked down all the IMAX screens in North America—and other territories—for three whole weeks starting July 21. This means the Universal Studios movie about the man who developed the atomic bomb just dropped one on Tom Cruise’s nearly $300 million Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part One.
Despite booking most of the IMAX screens for the week of Mission: Impossible 7‘s July 12 opening Tom Cruise, much like Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, isn’t happy unless he can have everything he desires. To that end, the 60-year-old megastar has been reportedly going around Hollywood loudly voicing his displeasure over Oppenheimer‘s IMAX dominance.
According to one source, Tom Cruise is personally calling around to exhibition and studio execs to plead his case. Since IMAX makes up roughly a third of all P.L.F.s—Premium Large Format auditoriums—in the US, Cruise has changed gears and is currently working to secure as many of the non-IMAX P.L.F.s as he can. According to one anonymous exec, the diminutive Scientologist has even started asking rival movies to give up their P.L.F.s or even postpone their release dates “for the good of the entire theatrical business.”
Given Christopher Nolan‘s history with the IMAX brand, it only makes sense that the filmmaker would try and make sure Oppenheimer screens on as many IMAX screens as possible. Nolan has always praised the format and even filmed the entirety of Oppenheimer with IMAXs large format cameras. If the director’s loyalty to the format wasn’t enough, Universal staked out Nolan’s usual late July slot back in 2021, way before Mission: Impossible announced its planned release date the following year. You would think someone as synonymous with the movie business as Tom Cruise would be willing to follow the “first come, first served rule,” but you would be wrong.
Oddly, most of the hot air currently inflating Tom Cruise’s ego came from the lungs of Steven Spielberg. The Indiana Jones co-creator told Cruise publically, “You saved Hollywood’s a** and you might have saved theatrical distribution,” before reiterating, “Seriously, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” Whether Spielberg meant his words as hyperbole or he really believes the actor singlehandedly saved Hollywood is irrelevant. Tom Cruise seems to believe Spielberg’s words.
There’s no other way to explain why Cruise would allegedly use the fact that he “saved” theaters as a way to persuade distributors to relinquish their theaters to him. Tom Cruise is reportedly running around showing Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part One to any exhibitor who will watch it, believing that once they see his latest masterpiece, the only question on any of their lips will be “Christopher who?” So far, it doesn’t appear to be working.
Maybe Tom should ask Steven Spielberg to accompany him to these impromptu screenings as the actor’s hype man. It couldn’t hurt. Cruise’s rep, Amanda Lundberg, has so far declined to comment.
