One of the recuring discussions that happens here on The Movie Blog and other film related websites is Celebrities how from time to time act like total asses. Maybe it’s Russell Crowe, perhaps it’s Ben Affleck… or maybe (as in today’s case) it’s Tom Cruise.
The question that is often raised by myself and others is “SHOULD HOW WE FEEL ABOUT A CELEBRITY EFFECT HOW WE VIEW THEIR WORK ON SCREEN?” The answer to that specific question is usually NO, it SHOULD NOT effect how we view their on screen work. However, in reality, even though we don’t think it SHOULD effect how we enjoy their films… the truth is that it often does. Regardless if it’s wrong or right… it’s the truth for many of us to one degree or another.
So here cometh May 5th, the wide release date for Mission Impossible 3. Personally I’m VERY interested to see how this flick does at the box office for one very simple reason: I want to see if Tom Cruise acting the one of the world’s biggest Jack Asses over the past year is going to negatively effect the general movie going audience’s desire to see the newest Cruise flick.
Will people have been so turned off by Cruise’s nonsense over the last little while that they’ll stay away from his film? Or will they separate Tom Cruise the idiot, from Tom Cruise the Movie Star who usually turns out pretty enjoyable films?
My opinion? I think it’ll be somewhere in the middle. I expect MI:3 to take about $40 million opening weekend. That’s a good number… HOWEVER… I also think if Cruise had just kept his mouth shut the past 18 months this film would have opened with $60+ million EASY.
So let’s see what happens. Will you go see MI:3? What are you predictions?
