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Dream team pairing looks like a sure hit
[Photo: Twentieth Century Fox and Dreamworks L.L.C.]
Steven Spielberg, right, directs a shot featuring Tom Cruise, left, and Samantha Morton on the set of Minority Report. |
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 20, 2002
The first union of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise, for Minority Report, reaps high expectations.
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CHICAGO -- The teaming of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise is so perfect that you wonder why it never happened before Minority Report. On separate paths, they've made Hollywood history, it seems, with everyone except each other.
Spielberg's films have grossed more than $6-billion worldwide. Cruise's name sold another $3.5-billion in tickets. On bankability alone, some studio should have locked them away together without food or film until a deal was worked out.
Fifteen years of friendship couldn't bring them together until Cruise sent Spielberg a copy of Philip K. Dick's short story The Minority Report, something he had plenty of time to read while working for the notoriously slow Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut. They informally agreed to make it a movie, then Kubrick died in 1999 and Spielberg shifted attention to his late friend's ideas for A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Cruise stayed busy with Vanilla Sky.
Now, finally, the best director in the world and the world's most popular actor made the kind of movie those reputations demand. On a chilly day in the Windy City, Cruise laughs at a suggestion that it's like the Cubs trading for Barry Bonds to hit behind Sammy Sosa.
"I'm flattered by that analogy," Cruise says, his trademark smile not impeded by enamel-colored braces on his teeth. "That's a lot to live up to.
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"But, you know, walking onto a Steven Spielberg set, I get excited. You hope that will translate to an audience and they will get as excited. That's the difference between sports and film. We don't have that audience there every day, looking over your shoulder and knowing that one loss could cost you. It's a different kind of process with a tremendous amount of pressure, and every day you shoot is the only day you have."
Such a complex project as Minority Report requires artistic qualities Cruise and Spielberg find in each other. The symbiotic nature of their relationship is obvious, two passionate, creative talents who believe they still have something to prove after all the money and awards. Spielberg recently told Oprah Winfrey that he found his brother in Cruise on the set, a feeling that carries over in separate interviews with them.
"Together, we're like one personality," Spielberg says. "Tom and I were friends for 15 years before Minority Report, and we always agreed to agree. We never had a disagreement."
Neither artist seems likely to slow down long enough for an argument.
"He is the original Energizer bunny," Spielberg says of his actor. "This guy comes on the set in the morning, and the first thing he does is walk around and shake hands with the crew. We might be in the 71st day of shooting, and he's shaking hands every morning. He knows their stories, their families, he knows everybody. People he never worked with before become his best friends for the whole shoot. I've never seen that happen before.
"Tom will do anything you want him to do, but at the same time he brings so many good ideas to the set every day. He'll look at the work two or three days before a shoot. A lot of actors look at the work the night before. He's so prepared. The audience sees that he looks them in the eye in every part he has ever played."
Cruise shrugs off the compliments, suggesting that he was just doing what he could to keep up with Spielberg's imagination.
"All through development he was working with (screenwriter) Scott Frank, and you could just see the seeds of his ideas slowly working," Cruise says. "It just kept getting better and better. You never know how something's going to turn out, but it was a movie I wanted to make because it's a movie I wanted to see.
"His ability to never lose sight of the narrative when directing the picture is remarkable. Steven is more interested in letting the characters take you through this story, making it enjoyable for the audience yet also delivering the information the audience needs in an interesting, cinematic way. He takes you on a ride, but he also chooses angles that support his story and characters.
"It just happens," Cruise says, adding his own sports analogy: "How does Michael Jordan do what he does?"
Now it's game time. If Bonds and Sosa were in the same lineup, Cubs fans would settle for nothing less than a World Series title. Movie fans expect a film directed by Spielberg and starring Cruise to excel on the screen and at the box office.
"I don't mind those expectations," Cruise says. "When I'm deciding to do something, I don't think of it that way. I think about what I want to do and the expectations I personally have. I don't think anyone could go beyond the expectations I have for myself, and actually what I expect of people I'm working with. I expect a lot.
"I truly go in hoping the studio will make its money back. That's not a joke. I want enough money for them to get a better return than if they had the money in a bank. Pressure does not bother me."
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