Listen Now: The Big Flop

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Hello, my dear listeners.

Chris and I recently had the pleasure of guesting on an episode of the podcast, The Big Flop, about Tom Cruise's flop era.

Yes, he had a flop era.

As some of you may know, I do also produce this show and I love it so much.

It was so fun to be on the other side of the mic for this episode.

And yes, I booked myself on my own show.

I feel no shame about it.

So, if you want to learn more about what happened when Tom Cruise fired his publicist, jumped the couch, and let Scientology take over, head to the Big Flop feed and give the full episode a listen.

You can also listen to every episode of the Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.

For now, here's a little taste of the Big Flop.

When Mission Impossible 3 opens in May 2006, it is a major disappointment.

It fails to even make its budget back domestically.

It also, to this day, ranks dead last in box office for the whole Mission Impossible franchise.

So, Tom Star Power is looking like it's in serious trouble, and his new PR strategy may have just killed his biggest franchise.

Which means we are now officially in music, please.

Tom's flop era.

Yay!

Yay!

So excited to be here.

So a huge part of what makes this Tom's flop era is that in the wake of Tom's couch moment, gossip blogs and the press are running wild with stories about him.

And to learn more about these tabloid stories and rumors, let's play a game.

I'm going to tell you some rumors that are going around about Tom and the press at this time.

With keywords and phrases removed, you have to fill in the blanks.

Now, to be totally clear, all of these are unsubstantiated rumors in the press.

All right, are you ready?

Yes.

Oh, God.

Rumor number one:

Tom blanks Katie using a blank.

Ew

bathes.

Oh, using a loofah.

Uh,

Tom kisses Katie using

his hands.

I don't know.

I'm not going to do well at this.

Well, here's the answer.

The rumor in the National Enquirer is Tom tracks Katie's every move using GPS.

Oh, well, we all do that now.

I watch where my husband is on my phone when he goes to the grocery store.

I was going to say, I'm being tracked right now.

Yeah, we do that now.

But keep in mind, this is pre-iPhone days.

Tracking someone with GPS back then was very much not normal.

That's true.

Those were large also.

Where did he put it?

Yeah, he's just like lowjack your wife's purse.

It's the only way that you can do it.

Got it.

Okay, our next tabloid rumor.

Tom paid Katie to blank.

Marry him?

Oh.

No.

The rumor is that Tom paid Katie to make sure they had their baby in time for the news to give a boost to Mission Impossible 3.

Anybody who's tried to have a baby knows that it's not, you can't time it like that.

Although, if anyone could, Tom Cruise.

That's true.

That's true.

It would be.

Tom Cruise mentally guides the one sperm that

and it runs just like Tom Cruise all the way to the egg.

With the power of Xenu, it gets there.

All right, our final rumor: Tom bought a blank as a present for Katie.

I'm going to guess some sort of weird animal, like a lemur.

I don't know.

Child, I have no idea.

Oh, look,

close.

Tom bought a sonogram machine as a present for Katie.

Yes, there are reports that Tom purchased an ultrasound so he could personally keep tabs on his and Katie's daughter during Katie's pregnancy.

Okay, okay, I got to tell you this.

I am currently pregnant, and I will tell you, when you look at the screen, you have no idea what you're looking at.

It just looks like a little alien sea monkey.

That man has no business doing ultrasounds at home.

Every time we see it, we're like, is it supposed to look like that?

But then again, it's Tom Cruise.

He sees someone fly a plane.

He's like, I'm going to fly a plane.

He sees someone race a car.

I'm going to race a car.

He goes to the first sonogram and he goes, I could do this.

And he buys one.

It just, it checks out.

I'm not saying I condone it.

I'm just saying it feels consistent with Tom Cruise's hands-on approach to everything.

With all of this going on, people are getting more and more turned off by the idea of watching Tom in leading man roles.

As writer Ann Helen Peterson put it, quote, watching a Cruise love scene conjured visions of him manhandling katie holmes which in turn made you cringe

yeah his love scenes have never been great to be honest either it's interesting just despite being so handsome he doesn't actually feel very sexual on screen i think even if you look at jerry maguire like a lot of the energy is brought or nicole kidman and eyes wide shut is brought from the female co-star so you didn't need a lot for the worm to turn on that one yeah yeah i agree tom's also losing his ability to connect with audiences and it's starting to seriously hurt his career.

In May, Tom makes the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

That's great, right?

Wrong.

It's a story about movie star salaries, and it's asking whether Tom deserves his huge paydays.

The headline says, is Tom Cruise really worth $100 million?

Let's take a look at this cover.

Oh, come on.

That is the worst picture.

And it looks like they stretched it.

Yeah, it does.

It looks more like his cousin than it does.

That's Tim Cruise.

That's not Tom Cruise.

He looks very bloated.

It's not a good picture of him.

They're implying that his salary is bloated through a bloated photo of his face.

It's pretty, pretty brutal.

Pretty brutal photo.

Chris, you're giving them a lot of artistic credit

for the connection.

Well, I did this.

I worked for Entertainment Weekly at the time, actually.

Yeah, I can also see the Christian Bale thing going on here.

Sure.

Yes.

There's a little bit of menacing behind him, behind his eyes.

Although, as a father of two kids, this is what I look like when I smile right now.

So

just dead inside.

Just absolutely dead.

That's true, I can confirm.

Well,

uh-oh, maybe it's time for another PR shakeup.

At this point, Tom might even be desperate enough to hire a sister back.

Who knows?

I mean, how much worse could things get?

Well, things are actually about to get much worse.

Head to the Big Flop feed and give the full episode a listen.

You can also listen to every episode of the Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.