‘Blade Runner’ Meets ‘Interstellar’ in the Sci-Fi Spectacle Taking Over a New Streamer

This can't be a fun time for Tom Cruise, who recently headlined Digger, one of the biggest box-office bombs ever. To make matters worse, the movie was marketed as a grand tribute to Cruise's career, effectively making it seem like a vanity project. Digger is poised to end its run with less than $50 million at the worldwide box office, against a reported budget of $180 million. It's also notable for being the final movie released by Warner Bros. before the studio's takeover by Skydance. Of course, this isn't the first time that Cruise starred in an ambitious epic directed by a visionary filmmaker. In the 1990s, he worked with Paul Thomas Anderson on Magnolia and with Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut. He also took a bet on relatively inexperienced directors in the 2010s, starring in Christopher McQuarrie's Jack Reacher adaptation, and in an original sci-fi movie directed by Joseph Kosinski.

The gamble paid off. McQuarrie went on to direct the final four installments of the Mission: Impossible series, while Kosinski helmed the highest-grossing hit of Cruise's career, Top Gun: Maverick. But when Kosinski first collaborated with Cruise, he'd directed only one feature film, Tron: Legacy. While the movie was praised for its visual style and electric soundtrack, it was deemed not successful enough to warrant a sequel. Still, Cruise saw something in Kosinski and signed him to direct a 2013 sci-fi movie that received similar praise for its visuals and music, but was criticized for its thin narrative. The movie in question was recently added to the Starz streaming service, giving a younger generation the opportunity to check it out.