汤姆·克鲁斯（Tom Cruise），音乐剧

Remember back in the spring of 2020, when we were all shellshocked from lockdown? I don’t want to remember it either but this is about context, and at the time, with movies being pulled from theatres and everyone in Hollywood trying to figure out what the f-ck to do with the release schedule, Christopher Nolan’sTenetwas the “last blockbuster standing” and they were trying to position the film as the movie that would save movies. Didn’t turn out that way…

But the movie that is currently being crowned as the movie that has saved movies is the blockbuster of 2022,Top Gun: Maverick.In a piece for IndieWire a few days ago, Tom Brueggemann argues that “Top Gun: Maverickis bigger thanTitanic: It Saved the Movies”. Whether or not this is true is beside the point. The point here is that that’s how people in the industry are talking about Top Gun and, of course, about Tom Cruise because as we all know now, after Tom’s aggressive self-mythology where the release ofTG:M令人担忧的是，他努力举办这部电影以进行戏剧发行，并坚持认为观众在剧院中亲自见到观众。他是对的。这部电影被广泛接受，这是票房上的怪物粉丝。

Which means that Tom Cruise can basically do anything he wants right now, that’s how it works.According to Deadline, he and his producing partner Christopher McQuarrie are using his newly restored power capital to push forward on three new projects:

“One is an original song and dance-style musical they’ll craft as a star vehicle for Cruise. They are also setting up another original action film with franchise potential, and they are also fixated onLes Grossman. The latter is the gruff, dance-happy studio executive Cruise played in cameo for Tropic Thunder. It’s unclear if they will create a whole movie around Grossman, or borrow him for inclusion in either of the other vehicles.”

人们很长一段时间以来一直在谈论Les Grossman的事情。而且，显然，汤姆似乎无法退出莱斯。我不知道任何人都需要一部全长的Les Grossman电影，但是汤姆想复兴这个角色的事实确实使我们对他的兴趣有所了解，而不是快速奔跑并跳下山脉。事实证明，他想做的不仅仅是快速奔跑，跳下山脉（或从飞机或建筑物中出来），而且他实际上想参与喜剧。在他的职业生涯中，我们还没有得到很多喜剧的汤姆·克鲁斯（Tom Cruise）。显然，汤姆想有趣 - 通过莱斯。

And he also, evidently, wants to do some jazz hands.

This is what I’m most interested in – the Tom Cruise musical. Because what would that actually look like? What’s the story here? Is it just Ethan Maverick Hunt singing and dancing? Or are we talking about Tom Cruise Evan Hansen?

Any reference to Tom Cruise and musical inevitably invokes the memory of年龄的岩石and while that movie wasn’t great, he wasn’t the worst part. You know why? Because he tried and that’s the essential ingredient of any musical: effort. You can’t care about being cool when you’re in a musical. It’s anathema to the theatre spirit. Theatre people are try-hards by nature…

And this is my point about Tom Cruise: who’s more of a try-hard than Tom Cruise? Tom Cruise is a theatre kid! He has, over the years, suppressed his theatre kid urges, but there was a time when Tom Cruise did not need an invitation to bust out in song and dance.

Maybe that’s what’s always been misunderstood about his infamous scene inRisky Businesssliding across the floor in his underwear mouthing the words to “Old Time Rock’n’Roll”. We weren’t seeing a heartthrob in his groove there, we were seeing a theatre kid doing the most, as theatre kids do.

There’s also the earnestness factor. Tom Cruise is SO f-cking, sometimes painfully, earnest. It doesn’t translate the same way as, say, Jonathan Groff (probably because of the whole, um, Scientology thing) but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his own peculiar brand of earnestness that could actually work in a musical.

And that’s apparently his big swing right now – leveraging the success ofTop Gun: Maverickinto a musical? That in and of itself is kinda theatre energy, isn’t it? Will Tom Cruise finally have his technicolour dreamcoat moment?

Here’s Tom from a few days ago conveniently leaving the theatre after seeing the new West End production ofJerusalemin London.