Tom Cruise Made Oblivion Because He Wanted To Try And Be Normal
There was a time when Tom Cruise was opening with one of the most anticipated science fiction movies of the year with 2013’s Oblivion. At the time, it was up against Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, and After Earth
When it was all said and done, the Tom Cruise movie wasn’t all that successful, making *just* $288 million at the box office on its $120 million budget. For big-budget movies, this just doesn’t cut it at all.
What was interesting though was hearing about why Tom Cruise took the part in the first place, and what drew him to an obviously sci-fi role.
In an interview with Flicks and Bits at the time, Tom Cruise openly discussed why he was drawn to Oblivion.
Tom Cruise said in part, “Jack is a futuristic blue-collar guy, basically. At the start of the film, he believes he’s the last man on Earth. He’s a guy who fixes drones, and he’s in charge of security for the resource gatherers and those big machines that are gathering up Earth’s sea water to be utilized for the new colony on Titan.
Tom Cruise went on, “And that’s his job, every day he goes down to Earth while Victoria stays in the Skytower, and he’s essentially just fixing the drones and trying not to get killed (laughs). But Jack, he feels such a pull to Earth, that this is his home – I think that’s a big theme in the film: what is your home?”
Though Tom Cruise’s Oblivion is clearly a futuristic sci-fi movie, this was the actor once again drawn to a character who has more a blue-collar feel than anything else. It was somewhat similar with War of the Worlds where he played a working type dude just more in our current timeline.
Jack Reacher was another “down to Earth” type of guy, though obviously built in a different mold for Tom Cruise. It makes sense that he would want to play these types of characters, especially in contrast to someone like Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise. No one would confuse him with the working man.
