Both dealt with some form of alien invasion, both saw Cruise as an earnest hero, and both contained plenty of exotic machinery and explosions. At a casual glance, Edge Of Tomorrow might have looked like fairly generic stuff – vaguely reminiscent, even, of the previous year’s Cruise sci-fi action film, Oblivion. Almost every promo focused heavily on three things: Cruise, sci-fi hardware and battles. Looking back over the various trailers and TV spots now, it’s not difficult to see why. On the face of it, Warner did its best: a reported $100m was spent on posters, trailers, TV ads and social media campaigns. The film’s biggest stumbling block, however, was surely its marketing. Tom Cruise may be partly to blame, too, but his name isn’t exactly box office poison, either – if he was, even the Mission: Impossible franchise would have dwindled by now – instead, Ghost Protocol was the most lucrative entry yet.Įdge Of Tomorrow was also the victim of unfortunate timing: Warner clearly underestimated the allure of the young adult romance The Fault In Our Starsand the Angelina Jolie fantasy vehicle Maleficent, both released around the same time. Edge Of Tomorrow could easily be the name of a forgettable pulp short story from the 1950s, the title of a political manifesto, or the heading of a businessman’s self-important Power Point presentation, picked out in Verdana with a grey drop shadow. It sounds like a science fiction film, certainly, but it’s also beige and indistinct. What was disquieting about Edge Of Tomorrow’s poor theatrical showing, however, was that its critical notices were far more positive than his other recent films, yet somehow, those notices failed to translate into adequate pre-release buzz. Edge Of Tomorrow eventually made about $269m outside the US. Several analysts predicted that Edge Of Tomorrow would fare much better overseas, where Cruise’s greater star power saw those films listed above make closer to $200m. Edge Of Tomorrow made a shade over $100m. The actor’s non-sequel films – for example, Knight And Day, Jack Reacher, and Oblivion– all struggled to crack $100m at the US box office. Strangely, Edge Of Tomorrow’s performance was almost exactly on par with the perofrmance of Cruise’s other movies from the past few years. But then trade papers began to predict that Edge Of Tomorrow would struggle, based on Tom Cruise’s other recent films at the box office – a prediction that would soon come true. On paper, Edge Of Tomorrow had lots going for it when it came out in May 2014: two Hollywood stars, a solid high concept, a respected director behind the camera (Doug Liman) and plenty of glowing reviews. It’s the latest curious development in the life of a film that could – and should – have performed far better than it did.
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