Here’s How Tom Cruise Contributed To The Idea Of International Movie Premieres (Photo Credit – Instagram)
Advertisement
Tom Cruise changed Hollywood marketing forever. The actor was the first to promote international red carpet premieres, turning movie promotion into a global spectacle. Cruise told Jimmy Kimmel (as reported by ABC News) that before Top Gun, Cruise, and other A-listers traveled for movie promotions.
Instead of big red carpets, they did long global tours. Tom Cruise visited Italy, Paris, and Japan, sometimes staying for weeks and even months. He loved it since he always wanted to travel. But Cruise said he saw a faster way. While promoting Top Gun in Paris in 1986, the Hollywood star realized the process was too slow.
Martin Scorsese was back in the U.S. editing The Color of Money. Rain Man was still in its early drafts. And Tom Cruise? He was just waiting. That’s when he has his lightbulb moment. “I like premieres, so I came up with the idea of, ‘Let’s have premieres in different countries and then kind of do it that way.’ It took me a few years to get it going,” Cruise said.
So, instead of dragging out the tour, he thought, why not hold premieres in multiple countries back-to-back? It took years for his idea to catch on. Studios were stuck in their old ways. Back then, international releases weren’t even a priority. The U.S. box office was the big moneymaker, and overseas markets were an afterthought.
But Tom Cruise wasn’t having it. He pushed for more global premieres, treating international audiences like they mattered. And when studios saw the money rolling in, they jumped on board. Fast forward to today, and releasing a blockbuster without a massive global tour is unthinkable. Movies like Mission: Impossible and Marvel films now follow this model. Even rom-coms get international treatment.
The idea of overseas premieres wasn’t completely new. Some films had big openings outside the U.S. before Cruise’s time. But what about the strategy of rapid-fire, multi-country premieres? That’s where Cruise takes credit. And Hollywood clearly followed his lead. Now, international marketing is a must. Cruise may not have invented it from scratch, but he helped turn it into what it is today.
