Tom Cruise’s Reacher gamble may not pay off

Cruise’s controversial decision to cast himself as drifter and ex-soldier Jack Reacher – the hero in Lee Child’s book is 6ft 5ins tall 
and blond, Cruise is, well, let’s just say he’s not a natural blonde and stands a fair shade under Jack Reacher’s height 
as Child has it – has not appealed to punters around the world.

While the $60 million film has so far grossed more than $150m, studio insiders are concerned that it needs to be a $100m hit in the Far East to be in with a hope of justifying a sequel.

Talk of such mind-boggling box office receipts is not new to the Cruise camp.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the third outing in the series that began in 1996, took a stupendous $694m worldwide, proving Cruise’s enduring appeal.

It is an appeal he has had from the moment he slid on to screen in his socks and not much else in Risky Business (although we had seen him previously in The Outsiders). What happened next, as we all know, is movie history.

Yet the risk of attempting to persuade fans to accept a new franchise may not have paid off.

News of Jack Reacher’s under-performance comes as a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film was announced. Die Hard 5 comes out on February 14. And Sylvester Stallone is said to be exploring a third and fourth Expendables outing, the latter focusing on an all-female band of ball-busters to be called (I kid you not) The Expendabelles.

It is worth dwelling on the Stallone scenario. Ten years ago his career was well and truly in the toilet. Despite everything that had gone before it – Oscars and huge box office – a rare combination, the man was a dinosaur, unable to green-light a viable movie. Then came reboots of Rocky and Rambo and, lo, a new dawn presented itself.

Having concluded his existing franchises Stallone came up with another, reimagining his ’80s persona for a new generation and is gaining a whole new fanbase. At 66, he has three franchises under his belt.

Cruise is aiming for just two. But how many series does a movie star need? And does it smack of laziness? Both Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis held off on new adventures for their favourite characters until it was almost too late.

With their stars on the wane they dusted off the fedora of Indiana Jones in the case of Harrison Ford and dug out the white vest of John McClane in the case of Bruce Willis. Problem was, of course, that by then audiences had moved on.

Perhaps Cruise wants to move on, too – to wave off Ethan Hunt and replace him with a newer hero. Or maybe, at 50, he sees a franchise or two as his old age pension.

One thing is certain: nobody wants a creaky old action star.