Movie star Tom Cruise endorsed the Warner Bros.-Paramount merger this week when he said that the studio will deliver on its promise to release 30 theatrical films a year.
Cruise shared his thoughts about the merger during an interview on The Pat McAfee Show.
“I think it’s awesome,” Cruise said. “You know, here’s the thing. They’re going to deliver 30 movies. It’s a community to me. It’s not an industry. The people in these studios are not just people in the studios. They’re my family. I know we’re going to get those 30 movies. I want us all to come together as a community to help make those 30 movies. It’s not just going to be, you know, Paramount doing it. Everyone’s going to need all the help of every artist to be able to do it.”
Cruise, who worked with Paramount on the smash hit Top Gun: Maverick, said that the 30 movies released could easily become 40 movies, which would empower artists and directors to make the “films that they want.”
“Like you can have these artists, all these greats, they got to cut their teeth and learn in the same way that you get to act, and you’re learning. It’s, you take it and the next one and the next one. Every single one of them,” he said.
“The Iñárritus, the Spielbergs, the Nolans, me — all the opportunities that I’ve had, I want that for every writer, every director, every producer, every artist. And the only way you do it is we have to create an abundance. Its production begets production,” he added.
Cruise recalled the 1980s and the variety of theatrical releases, adding that bringing cinema back to Hollywood will be a “community” effort.
“I remember in the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, you’d have five films opening on the weekend, and people [went] to the movie theaters,” Cruise recalled. “You see how audiences are enjoying that experience, but we got to make them… And we have to as a community. We’ve got to help each other to do it,” he added.