In Hollywood, there are many stars but only a few legends. For Clint Eastwood (a legend himself), no one gets bigger than Tom Cruise.
The veteran director Cameron Crowe confirmed this interesting titbit during a recent interview. Following such a revelation, however, one can't help but wonder if Eastwood and Cruise have ever collaborated in all their years in the business.
During a recent wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, Crowe talked about several films, and naturally, Cruise, whom he worked with on Jerry Maguire and Vanilla Sky, came up. As expected, the director had nothing but praise for the A-lister, but he also recalled an interesting conversation he had with Eastwood about Cruise.
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According to Crowe, Eastwood believes that Cruise is the onscreen legend that tops all legends. 'So I'm sitting there and Clint Eastwood leans over and says, "Tom Cruise",' Crowe recalled. 'And he goes, "In a hundred years, they're gonna look back — that's the career, Tom Cruise's career".'
Interestingly, Eastwood made this remark about Cruise despite never having worked with the veteran actor. That said, it's fairly easy to see why the Oscar-winning filmmaker would make such a prediction.
After all, Cruise's star power is often incomparable, not only by his tendency to rule the box office, but also by his ability to have a commanding onscreen presence time and time again. Cruise's stardom is timeless, as proven by recent hits such as Top Gun: Maverick and the final Mission: Impossible franchise movies.
While Cruise and Eastwood have yet to collaborate on anything together, it's not like they never tried. Several years back, Eastwood was planning to direct the drama A Star Is Born, and he was hoping that Cruise would play the lead role opposite Grammy-winning singer Beyoncé.
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Cruise had just done Rock of Ages, and it was clear that he had the singing chops for another movie. Unfortunately, the actor was too busy to take on the project. In fact, Cruise was already working on his next film, the sci-fi flick Oblivion, which reunited him with frequent collaborator Joseph Kosinski.
Eventually, those plans fell apart. Cruise never signed on to the movie, and Beyoncé exited the project as she was pregnant at that time. At some point, Eastwood dropped out of the project, too, and moved on to another film. 'I'm sitting there thinking, "I'm watching something historic about to happen," and then it didn't. It's just the movie business,' producer Bill Gerber recalled while speaking with The Hollywood Reporter. 'It's just the movie business.' Bradley Cooper would later sign on to direct and star in the Oscar-winning movie with Lady Gaga as his co-lead. As for Cruise, he kept making hit movies.
Meanwhile, if you ask Crowe, it's possible that Cruise would 'segue into character roles' after wrapping up his time as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt onscreen. Just what character role might be in store for this actor? Only time will tell. But perhaps Eastwood already has ideas.
