Tom Cruise has two huge movies on the way in 2021: Top Gun: Maverick or Mission Impossible 7 — which is the more important release? Despite occasional duds like 2017’s embarrassing attempt to reboot The Mummy franchise, Tom Cruise is one of blockbuster cinema’s most reliably successful performers, and the actor has a huge year ahead of him in 2021.
Cruise’s iconic 1986 cult classic Top Gun has a long-awaited sequel on the way in the form of Top Gun: Maverick and the same calendar year will see the actor add another installment to his most successful franchise, the Mission Impossible series. But which of these two huge movies will be bigger for the actor’s career?
It’s a harder question to answer than it may initially appear, as Top Gun: Maverick and Mission Impossible 7 are both likely to impact Cruise’s career in very different ways. On the one hand, the Mission Impossible series has only grown in popularity and box office success since its original 1996 outing. It is the only franchise that Cruise can call his own since the Jack Reacher series appears to be an extended hiatus, and with so many of Cruise’s hits being one-off successes like Edge of Tomorrow, Oblivion, and even the original Top Gun, he needs to keep most reliable money-spinner going. However, Top Gun is also a big part of the actor’s artistic legacy, and without the instant recognition of a famous franchise, the movie may prove perhaps an even greater test of what Cruise’s pulling power is like now.
The odds are good that Top Gun: Maverick’s success will mean more to Cruise than Mission Impossible 7’s since the Mission Impossible series is recognized as a consistently solid action series on par with the Fast and Furious movies even without outside of his involvement. Meanwhile, despite adding some big names like Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and Miles Teller to the cast, Top Gun: Maverick is more of a traditional star vehicle, with both the original movie and the belated sequel being centered around the leading man’s charisma. Only the likes of The Color of Money and Rain Man were more reliant on Cruise’s charm than Top Gun, and both of those movies are too modest and intimate to produce blockbuster sequels.
Top Gun, in comparison, is both a big-budget glossy blockbuster and a relatively straightforward character study that soars thanks to Cruise’s central performance. Without the reliable brand recognition of the Mission Impossible franchise and the support of his co-stars Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris, and Vanessa Kirby, Top Gun: Maverick will fly or flop based almost entirely on the audience’s fondness for Cruise, and the more emotionally resonant military drama offers the star more of a showcase for his acting ability than the fast-paced, stunt-heavy action of the Mission Impossible series. Mission Impossible 7 may be likely to make more of a splash than Top Gun: Maverick at the box office, but the Top Gun sequel is more likely to earn Cruise recognition for his acting ability and prove his star power outside of a reliable franchise.