by They were the two men credited with saving cinema and getting bums back onto cinema seats around the world after months of Covid-19 lockdowns. And yet neither James Cameron nor Tom Cruise showed up for the 2023 Oscars.
Cruise’s film Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to the 1986 hit, grossed $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office. Its massive success was widely seen as a sign the industry had recovered from months of uncertainty and showed Covid-skeptical audiences were ready to return for the film right.
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Cruise stars in Top Gun: Maverick, but is also a producer, which meant he was nominated for Best Picture alongside Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison and Jerry Bruckheimer.
On Sunday, a Cruise representative confirmed that the actor is filming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part II, the upcoming eighth installment in the action franchise, in Europe. Bruckheimer was willing to accept the Oscar if the film had won Best Picture, which instead went to Everything, Everywhere, at Once.
Top Gun: Maverick only won one of the six awards up for grabs: Best Sound. It was the Dark Horse nominee for best picture, but was widely praised for luring back audiences who wanted to see the big-budget action film on a cinema screen.
Director Steven Spielberg was filmed last month Saying to Cruise at the 2023 Academy Luncheon, “You saved Hollywood’s ass, and maybe you saved theatrical distribution, too. Seriously, Maverick might have saved the entire theater industry.”
Cameron, meanwhile, was nominated to produce best picture nominee Avatar: The Way of Water, now the third-biggest film of all time, grossing $2.93 billion worldwide. Avatar: The Way of Water was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but won only one for Best Visual Effects.
Cameron’s producing partner and fellow contestant Jon Landau told the New York Times that his absence was due to “personal reasons.” Cameron had attended two Academy Awards in the days leading up to the ceremony.
This year’s Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel joked about her absence, saying: “You know, Tom [Cruise] and James Cameron didn’t show up tonight. The two guys who insisted we go to the theater didn’t come to the theater.”
“Everybody loved Top Gun, everybody! I mean shirtless tom cruise and that beach football scene? L Ron Hubba Hubba,” Kimmel joked, referring to Scientology Founder L Ron Hubbard.
He also raised the possibility that Cameron hadn’t attended because he hadn’t been nominated for Best Director, saying: “Some of the cynics say James Cameron isn’t here because he didn’t get a Best Director nomination. And while I find it hard to believe in a man of such profound humility, he’s right. I mean, why doesn’t the academy nominate the guy who directed Avatar? What do you think he is, a woman?”
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“You know a show is too long when even James Cameron can’t get through it,” he added, referring to Avatar: The Way of Water’s 192-minute runtime.
Cruise will next appear on screens in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part I in July, while the next Avatar film will be released in December 2024.
