Glen Powell and Kate Hudson also think Tom Cruise saved movie theaters: “He Babe Ruthed it”
Glen Powell discussed Tom Cruise's insistence on holding Top Gun: Maverick until after the pandemic in his recent Actors on Actors interview with Kate Hudson
Aux News Glen Powell
Glen Powell and Kate Hudson—both huge stars in their own right—recently participated in Variety’s ongoing Actors on Actors series, a conversation which they spent partly on each other’s most recent projects (Korean War drama Devotion and Glass Onion respectively) but mostly on Tom Cruise.
“It took a year-plus to actually shoot the movie,” Powell said of Top Gun: Maverick, in which he played “Navy Draco Malfoy” Lt. Jake “Hangman” Seresin—at Cruise’s insistence. “Tom’s a perfectionist, and so he was like, ‘We got to get it right.’ And I saw the movie, and then COVID happened, and I was like, ‘Oh, man, we’re sitting on this awesome thing.’”
Kate Hudson agreed: “In true Tom Cruise form, the perfectionist that he is, he always wins. I was in New York and I went to Union Square to see it on the big screen with an audience. It was like, ‘Thank God. These are the movies we need in the movie theater.’”
“They showed us the final cut. I watched that movie and I was like, “I think we did it. Tom called it out—he Babe Ruthed it,” Powell responded. “He was like, ‘This movie’s good enough where we have to just wait for this pandemic to be over.’ But you know how it is.”
While Tom Cruise may have lost his epic battle to “never” let Maverick go to streaming platforms, he was right about one thing: holding the movie’s release certainly put lots of butts in lots of seats (and lots of dollars in Cruise’s pocket).
“Let’s get Tom over with. Because we love talking about Tom,” Hudson said before praising Maverick’s healing powers: “Top Gun, if that wasn’t great, then that would’ve been terrible. It would have been such a bummer. We needed a good Top Gun so bad.”
Stars: sometimes they’re fans—just like us!
35 Comments
Shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
I respect wanting your movie in a theater. I even respect wanting it to get a several months in theaters before home release. But what the fuck is Cruise on about NEVER going to streaming bullshit? Does he think people still buy DVDs? Does he actual believe many of his fans saw most of his movies in theaters? I hate this Hollywood bullshit where actors and directors are acting like the home market doesn’t exist or is not valid. I understand why they are doing it. Direct streaming is just another nail in the coffin of cinema(a long with big screen TVs and home surround sound systems). But the fact is for late Gen X’ers on we have seen a huge number of movies at home first. Some of our favorite and some of the best movies ever made we watched at home. The first time I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark(one of my favorite movies) was on a 20″ black and white TV on normal ass TV, editing for time, with commercials, pan and scanned for 4:3. And you know what, it still blew me the fuck away. Great movies are at their greatest on the big screen. Raider in 70mm made me cry. But great movies are great wherever you watch them, however you watch them. Edit: Unless you have that motion smoothing shit on! Turn that crap off
“But what the fuck is Cruise on about NEVER going to streaming bullshit?”
It’s very apt that you called it bullshit because the idea that he ever said his movies would NEVER go to streaming *is* bullshit.
That’s not what he meant by “never.” He was asked if there was discussion about Top Gun: Maverick debuting the same day-and-date online as in theaters. He was specifically talking about its debut release. That’s not going to happen, ever. That was never going to happen. Never. Not going to happen.https://www.ign.com/articles/tom-cruise-refused-to-allow-top-gun-maverick-debut-streamingI don’t doubt that somewhere out there are actors and directors that literally think their movie should only be seen in a theater, but more often than not it seems to be overzealous blogs removing the full context from these juicy lil’ soundbites.
Fair to say Cruise was right, as well. Pretty sure it was still showing from its original run at a few theaters around here in October. No movie’s done that in forever.
Hell, there are a handful of theatres around here still playing it.
There’s no theaters left where I live, the pandemic shut them down and the minimum drive to get to a theater now from where I live is 35 minutes, 45 if you don’t want to pay $5 to go down a toll road.
I finally got around to seeing it around Labor Day. I don’t think Endgame was still in theaters in my area by the time Labor Day rolled around, and that was pre-COVID, and just before the streaming boom.(TBF, Endgame debuted in April, Maverick was a Memorial Day weekend release)
It’s apparently the first movie to be #1 on both Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend
Hell, here in Dublin it just knocked Black Panther out and took back the IMAX screen a couple of weeks ago for like the fourth or fifth time since it’s release. At least until Avatar shows up at the end of the week. Haven’t seen a movie with legs like this since maybe The Dark Knight, but probably more like Titanic.
It’s just come back here (Houston) in IMAX, so looks like I’ll be seeing it again in theaters very soon.
This is peak shittiness from the AV Club here – describe an inaccurate summary while linking to their own inaccurate article making the same clickbaity, BS claim. It’s gross and frustrating and makes me wish they held on to their better writers.
“Great movies are at their greatest on the big screen. Raider in 70mm made me cry.”
So you’re being completely and utterly hypocritical.Good for you!!!
In the linked article he quite literally says this- “There’s a very specific way to make a film for cinema and I make movies for the big screen. I know where to go after that. And that’s fine.”Cruise was talking about releasing direct to streaming, not saying that he’d never put his films on a streaming platform. Not even remotely a fan of Tom Cruise or most of his movies, but I’m less of a fan of people just making shit up like the author did here.
“I hate this Hollywood bullshit where actors and directors are acting like the home market doesn’t exist or is not valid.”Don’t agree, but I appreciate a good hate. Don’t let the comments bug you.
Tom Cruise can’t rescue movie theaters on an annual basis. Movie stars are a dying breed and so are theater chains.
“Glen Powell and Kate Hudson also think Tom Cruise saved movie theaters:”
Also?
I appreciate them sitting on it instead of pretending there wasn’t a raging pandemic going on at the time. However I do think we need to give Marvel a teeny tiny bit of credit here when it comes to lifeboats for theaters navigating covid. I think for the most part those were the movies coaxing audiences back out and by the time Maverick was released, people were more comfortable with the theatre experience.
Spider-Man: No Way Home currently has made more money than Top Gun: Maverick and that came out and was in theaters right around the Omicron spike. Plus, it wasn’t in theaters nearly as long as Maverick has been in them.
That’s the one I was thinking of, but even the others did a good job getting butts back in seats even if it wasn’t yet the numbers from pre-covid.
So you’re saying if you want to pull in the $$$, you need a colon in your title?
It doesn’t hurt.
Star Trek Into Darkness learned the hard way.Also because it was terrible.
until after the pandemic Oh.
Really wish he hadn’t.
Not to take away from Top Gun: Maverick but Spider-Man: No Way Home has made more money at the box office and came out 6 months earlier.
I can see it having been a boost for theaters, but regardless, Maverick was well done!
Speaking about the movie by itself, despite it’s flaws it was a huge success. But saying it saved movie theaters, nah. Spider-Man had a more successful run against the odds than Top Gun. But I wouldn’t say it solved the cinema problem and neither did Top Gun. But with home viewing, streaming, and people’s change/growth of preferences on where to view their entertainment, it just is what it is. The cinemas will always have a place. But they won’t be the dominant form anymore. Some movies will be a home run in cinemas, but there have been plenty of headlines stating box office slump and great movies not doing as well as projected in between. And the quality is a factor, but not quantity and definitely not variety as there are now more movies being released whether it’s streaming or in cinemas. But I still believe it’s just people being the main reason.I understand Tom Cruise point of view. He grew up with that, never expecting or experiencing half his life with DVDs/Blu-Rays, HD TV, internet, or streaming. Never knew how he felt about VHS. But for nearly 30 years, new generation of people have have grown up with those options. Their view of it is different. Their idea of what’s satisfactory to view entertainment holds a different value than how Tom Cruise and other actors/directors feel. Top Gun was a mega hit, but it didn’t save the movie theaters. It just reminded people that the cinema is still an option. Will cinemas die off? Maybe in the far future, but not anytime soon. Will it still hold relevancy? Yes, but not as the dominate platform to watch movies.
I’d say the former “eh, looks like a rental” reaction is now “I’ll wait for it on streaming.” I also expect a lot of how many people elect to go see a movie at a theater depends on the time lapse between theatrical and streaming releases. Right now I think they’re shooting themselves in the foot by spacing them by only a matter of weeks (and sometimes not even that). Theater operators are probably pissed as hell.
I understand theater operators being pissed off since it messes with their livelihood. They deserve at least a fighting chance to balance things out for them. But it’s really studios and not filmmakers usually that make the call for the space between theatrical run and streaming and even coming out on disc. For many of them it’s really about the instant gratification by profiting off on all platforms as soon as possible. I wouldn’t say it’s risky but more like an unstable method. Keep in mind though for international releases including their cinemas and streaming platforms, those are different companies that pay for different release times. Sometimes movies come out there in cinema or streaming before it’s released in America. So regional availability can also be a messy factor.
“Babe Ruth” is a verb now?
Only in this situation and when eating large quantities of hot dogs and beer.
I think there are a lot of people who don’t see the theater-going experience as a great one. If you’re looking to make it a night out, it can be pricey. And if price doesn’t bother you, sharing theater space with people who still don’t seem to understand that you don’t want to hear their personal commentary is annoying. If it’s a longer movie, there are no breaks and you can’t really pause if you have to use restrooms or if your kids get restless.The screens and sound are obviously better and I do think theaters did a pretty good job at modernizing in the 2010s by adding much nicer seats and better food / alcohol. But what I have at home is perfectly acceptable and there is added convenience and comfort. There are still some movies that I’d pay to go see in theaters because of the imagery or effects that demand a bigger screen. But majority of movies, I just don’t have a strong urge to do so.The main thing theaters had going for them prior to COVID-19 was it was the only place to see the vast majority of new movies. For major titles, it was home media wouldn’t even come out for 8-9 months after release. Nowadays, a lot of movies come out on streaming within 45 days and if that remains the new status quo, there is no “saving” of the traditional theater model that can be done. One or two movies doing well doesn’t change that. The model has to evolve even further to make theaters attractive to people who are perfectly happy watching at home again. If it even can.
After the pandemic?hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaHAHAHAhahaaaahahaha.We’re all going to die.
He saved nothing, merely extended its life support.