By Scott Mendelson, Contributor
Tom Cruise became a movie star during an era when a film’s success was less predicated on opening weekend. Like Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise made his name as Hollywood’s biggest and most consistent star when a $15 million opening weekend was very good, a $25 million weekend was fantastic, and a $100 million total was an unqualified smash hit. Before today, Cruise had six opening weekends above $25 million. They are Minority Report ($35 million), Interview with the Vampire ($36 million), Mission: Impossible ($45 million), Mission: Impossible III ($47 million), Mission: Impossible II ($57 million), and War of the Worlds ($64 million). The next highest are four films (The Last Samurai, Collateral, The Firm, and Vanilla Sky) that have opened around $24-25 million. Of the six biggest opening weekends, two of them were Steven Spielberg sci-fi action pictures, three of them were Mission: Impossible films, and one of them was a controversial adaptation of a beloved novel. So Cruise‘s biggest original-material openings are Minority Report and Collateral, which opened about $10 million apart from each other. Oh, and two of those openings (War of the Worlds and Mission: Impossible III) occurred in the heat of Cruise’s couch-jumping public-relations meltdown. Aside from the $64 million Fri-Sun and $112 million Wed-Sun debut of Steven Spielberg‘s War of the Worlds in 2005 and three of the four Mission: Impossible films, not a single Tom Cruise film had opened above $36 million. As such, the estimated $38.1 million for Oblivion (review) is actually Tom Cruise‘s biggest opening weekend outside of War of the Worlds for a non-Mission: Impossible entry and his biggest debut for a film that arguably was purely about Tom Cruise‘s star power.
