Before he was crowned the savior of Hollywood for refusing to give in and insisting that Top Gun: Maverick be released in theaters, Tom Cruise was trying his best to score a franchise that he could count on. He had the Mission: Impossible movies, of course. But there was clearly intent to secure a back-up plan in case things went south. Cruise was weighing the possibility of doing another Top Gun film, but Maverick wouldn’t be put together until a few years later. Together with his former producing partner Paula Wagner, Cruise decided to finally fast-track a property whose rights they had purchased in 2005. This was around the same time as Mission: Impossible III‘s tumultuous production.
The movie in question was released in 2012 to relatively positive reviews, but its greatest contribution was heralding director Christopher McQuarrie‘s return. McQuarrie had worked as a writer on numerous projects with Cruise, but it was only after proving his chops with the 2012 film that he was hired to essentially spearhead the next era of Mission: Impossible movies. He ended up directing four in a row — Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible — Fallout, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, and Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. The movie in question has left a rather uneven legacy, with the author of the novel series it was based on retroactively voicing his dissatisfaction with it.
Collider Acrostic — The Collider Movie Quiz!
Can you answer these movie questions, wherein each correct response begins with a successive letter of the word “Collider”?
Here’s the Tom Cruise Thriller That Caused an Uproar
We’re talking, of course, about Jack Reacher. Author Lee Child initially supported Cruise’s casting, even though the character is famously supposed to be a towering, tree-trunk-sized man. But he later admitted that Cruise simply didn’t fit the bill. Reacher is now played, much to the fans’ appreciation, by Alan Ritchson in Prime Video’s hit series Reacher. The show has aired three seasons so far, and is scheduled to return for a fourth. Cruise’s movie was quite successful; it grossed nearly $220 million worldwide against a reported budget of $60 million. It holds a 64% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, and was followed by a sequel titled Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. The second film wasn’t as successful, both critically and commercially. Cruise effectively abandoned the property, which was rebooted in 2022 with Ritchson’s show.
You can watch Jack Reacher for free this month on Pluto TV, and see for yourself what all the fuss was about. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
-
December 21, 2012
- Runtime
-
2h 10m