Publicity and the Cruise Phenomenon

Is there such a thing as too much publicity for a film? I think that the answer to that question is an emphatic yes as seen by the Tom Cruise/War of the Worlds publicity machine currently in effect for Wednesday’s theatrical release. The problem is not saturation of all media with advertisements, though the film is well represented, it is that the additional publicity of the whole Tom Cruise/ Katie Holmes relationship has gotten out of hand. Now the biggest thing is that the entertainment media has taken this entirely out of all reasonable bounds and the relationship, and Tom’s strange appearance on Oprah, and their engagement at the Eiffel Tower have all overshadowed one of the biggest movies of the year. Now Spielberg has been stoic about this telling the press that they have taken this to an extreme digging for all of this info and then criticizing Cruise for very, very public displays of enthusiasm and affection. Then he gets back to the work at hand, promoting his latest master work which shows a level of professionalism often lacking in Hollywood these days.

Of course the question is ‘Did they do this as a big publicity stunt?’ It does seem surprising that these two stars would fall madly in love and it would all come out in the press just in time for their big summer films to come out. The story broke just in time for her release of Batman Begins and the tempo has kept up with the recent proposal and should carry the trade magazines right through the holiday weekend and the opening of War of the Worlds. Now I don’t really think it is all coincidence because that would be just too much chance, but did the publicity department really believe that things would take off like this? There hasn’t been a story this harped on since the first Bennifer relationship. Now where Tom and Katie are and who they are dining with, his ex Penelope Cruz and her family, are getting more press than the New York premier.

The next question is will this sort of publicity help or hurt War of the Worlds at the box office. And I think the answer to that is, does it really matter? The movie is going to open huge and unless the reviews are downright awful, which so far they have not been, the film is going to be one of the biggest grossing films of the year. I don’t think that tabloid stories about Tom Cruise and the Scientologists getting a new member are really going to draw out a whole new crowd of people to the theater. Luckily they aren’t both in the same film so their onscreen chemistry isn’t up for debate unlike the ill-fated Gigli. But I have to think that people might shy away on the opening weekend because of all of the hoopla in the media about the couple. The biggest problem that I see is that all of this relationship publicity takes away from the publicity of the film. Again, not that the film needs it. We haven’t seen anything but a tentacle from the aliens but it is probably the most anticipated appearance since Spielberg introduced us to the T-Rex. No one does suspenseful trailers that tantalize and hint like Spielberg.

Publicity in general is a kind of questionable thing. The aforementioned Penelope Cruz doesn’t seem to be able to get through a film shoot without falling for her male costar but this time her relationship with Matthew McConaughey got far less press than her Vanilla Sky pairing with Tom Cruise. I have to guess that MaConaughey got enough personal press from the bongo incident prefers to play things a little closer to the vest. Plus, I don’t think that Cruz was eager to join McConaughey on his interstate trailer promotion of the film documented on MTV though Matt seemed to be having a great time. Then there are films like Kicking and Screaming that have a huge budget for the publicity that generate hardly anything. I do not know who puts the budgets together for these things but they might want to scale back on some of these. You can’t force a blockbuster just by annoying people with scads of commercials.

Of course this film affair is nothing new. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were the original Hoolywood power couple and they wielded their power throwing lavish parties at Pickfair and directing the affairs of Hollywood through their studio well after their careers were past their prime. Recently even the hint of a maybe relationship, like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie stokes the tabloid fires. The problem with things nowadays is that there are far more media outlets available to blast us with sound bytes and images than there were back in Pickford’s day so everything seems more overwrought. Then there was radio and newspapers and movie reel shorts. Nowadays we see Cruise jumping on a couch on Oprah, and movie trailers before films and during commercials, and pictures in the tabloid magazines, and articles masking as real news in the papers and news shows and on the internet. It is almost too much and makes the general public sick of the actor and with a bad feeling toward whatever flick they happen to be hawking at the time.

Of course let me reiterate again. All of the Cruise / Holmes hoopla may deter a few hundred people from venturing out to the movie this weekend, it may entice a few hundred people to see the movie this weekend, but for the most part it will have no bearing on the smash box office that War of the Worlds is going to enjoy this weekend. I doubt that it had much of an effect on Batman Begins either, the film is great and would have drawn a good crowd regardless of all of this ridiculous romance. Thank goodness most people have the sense to turn off the background noise and pay attention to the quality work that these actors have produced. The only hope is that the studios attribute these films successes to the right cause, good material, good acting, and well produced and directed films not to the publicity leviathan that they have unleashed on an unwitting and largely unwilling populace.