Is Tom Cruise heading towards a first-ever Best Actor Oscar?
Based on the footage just shown today at the Warner Bros Cinemacon presentation, as well as the ecstatic reception he got from the packed crowd of theatre owners who were the first to see it, I would say a nomination, at the very least, is a no-brainer.
This is the kind of character turn the star, introduced as the biggest movie star in the world, has not done in a while although I still have fond memories of his unrecognizable Les Grossman in 2008’s Tropic Thunder, but that was just a small supporting role. This one, based on the Cinemacon footage and his appearance as a gray haired pot bellied old oil man who destroyed the planet and now vows to fix it, is the kind of risk-taking unexpected performance that Oscar voters love. And in a film from five-time Oscar winner Alejandro G. Inarritu that promises to be wickedly wild and comic, but with something pertinent to say about the world, there can be no question that this October release will catapult Cruise back into the race.
Tom Cruise in ‘Digger‘
Warner Bros.
Cruise has been previously nominated three times for acting Oscars including his stellar turn in Born On The Fourth Of July, Jerry Maguire, and a supporting role in Magnolia. In November the Academy just decided they couldn’t wait anymore and gave him an Honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards. He could follow both Henry Fonda who got an Honorary Oscar in 1980 only to finally win Best Actor for On Golden Pond the very next year, as well as perennial Oscar bridesmaid Paul Newman who likewise got an Honorary Academy Award in 1985 only to take home that elusive Best Actor statuette the next year for, ironically, The Color Of Money which co-starred – you guessed it = Tom Cruise. We may be looking at that kind of situation should this role and this movie deliver, what the footage we all just saw in Vegas promises.
Cinemacon so far hasn’t delivered many obvious Oscar contenders (although Dune Part 3 looks epic enough to land a third Best Picture nomination for the series). This convention is more about commercial boxoffice type movies, but at last night’s Sony Pictures presentation footage from Aaron Sorkin’s followup to his Oscar winning The Social Network, called The Social Reckoning looked like a movie ripe for its time, and could be Oscar fodder for that studio and possibly Jeremy Strong who plays Mark Zuckerberg this time. Remember Jesse Eisenberg got a nomination as the Facebook founder, and Strong’s work looks right on the money.
Right now though Cruise is your first sure thing.
