Why Tom Cruise Hasn't Done A Superhero Movie

These days there are two types of actors, those that are making superhero movies, and those that aren't making them yet. Ok, actually there's three types because there's also Tom Cruise. While the actor has played plenty of over the top heroes in his films, he's never gone the full superhero route, and it doesn't appear that he ever will. While he admits to loving the superhero genre, he seems to be happy making his brand of action movie and has little interest in branching out.

Look, I really enjoy those films a lot. I enjoy them. But I make the Missions and Reacher. Just different kind of films.

Tom Cruise was a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live promoting Jack Reacher: Never Go Back when the host asked the actor if he'd ever had any conversations with Marvel or DC about joining a superhero movie for either of them. Cruise said no. It was a pretty unequivocal statement. It sounds like even if Marvel or DC called Cruise and wanted a meeting he'd say no. He seems to see them as something other than "his kind" of movie.

Of course, defining a "Tom Cruise movie" isn't necessarily an easy thing. His only major film franchise at this point is Mission:Impossible and while those films certainly have a lot in common with each other, the rest of his movies don't necessarily have a lot in common with them. He's done science fiction like Edge of Tomorrow and Oblivion and the more straight ahead action of Jack Reacher but even calling Cruise an "action hero" seems strange considering how often he does things that don't really qualify as action.

Whatever the reason that he's not interested in superhero movies, the commitment to multiple films wouldn't seem to be it. Tom Cruise will star in The Mummy next year which is expected to launch a shared universe of the classic cinematic monsters like The Wolf Man and Dracula. We fully expect that Cruise's role will extend beyond The Mummy itself into some of the other films that are being planned. We would assume his contract with Universal has him on board for awhile.

We do have to wonder, however, just how true Tom Cruise's statement is. Way back when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was just an idea, there was a pretty strong rumor that Cruise was interested in playing Iron Man. Now, it's absolutely possible that there was never any truth to the rumor in the first place, but often these rumors get started because conversations do happen. Of course, Cruise could also just be talking about the fact that no talks have ever happened since the popularity of superhero movies began, something that didn't really happen until after Iron Man was released.