Tom Cruise's Career Is Completely Over Forever and Until the End of Time
By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Box Office Round-Ups | Comments (52)
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I know a lot of you are going to be disappointed by this news, but it’s true: After the performance of Knight and Day at the box office, we can go ahead and cancel the rest of Tom Cruise’s career. It’s over. Kaput. Give it up, Tommy Boy. You’ll never work in this town again, you crazy-cakes closeted Scientology freak. You’re done. Give up. Just kill yourself. Now. Throw yourself head first into a well and drink the contents of it with your nose. After a nearly $28 million opening five-day frame, it’s clear that Cruise’s audience is non-existent. He should be ashamed. Humiliated. Twenty-eight million dollars? That’s all you have to say for yourself, young man? Shove your head in a hole. Now. God!
Oh sure, Cruise’s last film, Valkyrie, opened with $21 million, and everyone proclaimed that Cruise’s career wasn’t dead , that he still had some box-office life in him. But that was different. That was a movie no one expected to do well. That was back when no one thought Cruise was marketable. Totally different from Knight and Day, which was tracking terribly and came out during a period in Cruise’s career when no one thought he was marketable. See. Different. Plus, Valkyrie made $200 million worldwide, and Knight and Day only opened at number one in the few foreign territories in which it has been released so far. So, clearly, Knight and Day is only going to make about $200 to $230 million worldwide, which is only enough to make the film profitable. But overall profitability doesn’t matter! Studios don’t care about money! They care about public perception. And when Nikkie Finke declares the death of Tom Cruise’s career, it’s clearly over, because everyone in the Midwest reads Nikkie Finke, and they all make their future movie-watching decisions based on her blog, which explains — of course — why Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups only made $41 million.
Oh fuck: The sarcasm is hurting my brain. I’m having troubles following my own ironic thought process here. Let me put it in more simple terms: Those media pundits, like Nikki Finke, who are declaring the death of Cruise’s career (again), are smoking some serious skunk. Because, if you count the five day weekend, Knight and Day’s opening is better than the openings of Valkyrie, Lions to Lambs, Vanilla Sky, Collateral, The Last Samurai, Magnolia and even Jerry Maguire. Granted, Knight won’t have the legs of many of those others, but it will likely pull down $75 million domestically and $225 million internationally, and after all is said and done, including DVD rentals and sales, the film will probably pull down a $20 to $40 million profit for Fox, just like nearly every Cruise movie does (save for Lions for Lambs) and that’s despite one terrible fucking marketing campaign. In fact, the only reason this movie will be profitable is because of Tom fucking Cruise. Maverick’s career ain’t dead yet, people. He’s 48 goddamn years old and crazier than a gay ten-peckered owl at an ass convention, but people are going to be saying his career is over for another 10 to 15 years.
Meanwhile, Adam Sandler’s career is doing just fine, unfortunately. Grown Ups, inexplicably, became Sandler’s sixth film to open with over $40 million (and tenth with a $34 million opening, or higher), which demonstrates something very important about our culture, namely that — if given the choice between a bowl of chili and a bowl of feces — more Americans will choose to eat a bowl of feces if Adam Sandler’s face is on the can’s label. Mmmm: Sandler feces. Hearty!
Also, Toy Story 3 held incredibly well, adding another $59 million to bring its 10-day total to $226 million. The surprise hit of the summer, The Karate Kid is also continuing to perform well, adding another $15 million to bring its total to $135 million.
For the curious, Jonah Hex in its second weekend, added only another $1.6 million, and had the lowest per screen average of any film in the top 30, with $588 per theater. Now that’s a flop, folks, and I wouldn’t expect international box office to save it. And speaking of per screen averages, Cyrus had the highest among all releases in the top 30 with $17,000 in 17 theaters. Expect that to continue to roll out around the country and perform modestly in the coming weeks.
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Comments
Posted by: Chris at June 27, 2010 9:11 PM
This roundup confuses me. I read Nikke Finke's report and she said nothing even close to what you imply she said. She acknowledged the film played well and discussed missed opportunities in the marketing.
You guys know that a sarcastic rant doesn't play well when you misrepresent the other side, right?
(Ah, damn. I could've sworn that on Saturday morning -- after the Friday numbers and before she updated that post today -- that her anti-Cruise tone was a lot harsher. I just skimmed the update this afternoon, but now it does appear that Finke has, indeed, relented and shifted her blame toward Fox's marketing campaign and softened her tone toward Cruise. -- DR)