Godzilla tops Edge of Tommorrow, the Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt science fiction movie set for release in June by a factor of three. That, combined with projections that Cruise’s newest epic will draw $33 million for its opening weekend, and take in just over $90 million domestically, versus its $110 million production cost, points to a box office tank.
By contrast, Godzilla 2014 is predicted to top $60 million for its May 16th opening day weekend, and $230 million domestically. I’m going to go out on a limb at say that it will beat that and hit the $70 million. The reason is that the reaction to the trailers, plus the high name recognition for Godzilla, coupled with the addition of Bryan Cranston at the high-point of his career, and the pitching of this as a disaster movie, rather than a monster-movie, will capture and hold the audience. Remember, this may be the perfect combination of family story and fan boy epic ever, and if that’s the case, Godzilla may clear $1 billion before the end of the year.
All of that brings us back to the question of why Tom Cruise can’t seem to score a hit. The reason, to me, is simple: Tom Cruise as a person draws far more interest than Edge of Tommorrow, which has him in it. Look at this Google Trends chart:
It shows Mr. Cruise is yellow line, and below him in red is Godzilla. Note the overall downtrend for Tom, and the late uptrend for Godzilla. Finally, note that Bryan Cranston is more popular in search than Cruise’s Edge Of Tommorrow co-star Emily Blunt. But what’s more interesting is that Edge of Tommorrow’s search interest changes aren’t impacted by Tom Cruise, and vice versa.
Moreover, there are two instances where Bryan Cranston’s search intensity numbers improve just about a week or two after that for Godzilla rises. In other words, Edge Of Tommorrow just isn’t the right movie vehicle for Tom Cruise. He’s better off doing a modern sports-oriented mello-drama along the lines of 1996’s Jerry McGuire than the sci-fi direction he seems to be obsessed with of late.
Or something like the 1996 Mission Impossible, which, when this Google Trend is studied, actually got a bit of a rise in search intensity with the press Cruise was getting for his budding romance with Katy Holmes, who he married a few months later. Look:
The reason for that seems to be that when a movie is based more on a character and less on effects, it rises or falls with buzz around the actors who play the characters. Plus, Cruise took on a recognized story in American pop-culture in Mission Impossible. And he rode that approach to great success.
By contrast, no one knows the Edge Of Tommorrow story, Emily Blunt’s not tracking particularly well as a celebrity as the chart shows, especially when compared to Mr. Cranston, who, starting in 2013, began to tower over the results for both Blunt and Taylor-Johnson:
Meaning that he’s peaking at the right time for Godzilla’s box office fortunes.
Tom Cruise Should Call Leigh Steinberg
I think Tom Cruise should buy the movie rights to Leigh Steinberg’s book, The Agent, and focus on making a motion picture around it. It would be billed as the sequel to Jerry McGuire, in a way, but a real-life story. Leigh’s background and bio is a story of the growth of a new segment in the business of American pop-culture. There is more than the usual levels of romance, sex, drama, and the rise, fall, and rise of a person.
That movie would score for Tom Cruise, and far more than Edge Of Tommorrow will.
Stay tuned.
Zennie Abraham | Zennie Abraham or “Zennie62” is the founder of Zennie62Media which consists of zennie62blog.com and a multimedia blog news aggregator and video network, and 78-blog network, with social media and content development services and consulting. Zennie is a pioneer video blogger, YouTube Partner, social media practitioner, game developer, and pundit. Note: news aggregator content does not reflect the personal views of Mr. Abraham.