Baerrt

The thing with Cruise being a factor is when things such as Going Clear and Leah Remini's tv series, and book, are out there in the culture claiming Scientology to be essentially evil you have a significant amount of the public watching, reading or hearing about these exposes and it increases the skepticism about Cruise.

Back when MI3 was nearly directed by Fincher I recall rumours that Cruise wanted Sylvester Stallone of all people to play the villain......which would've been a face off for the ages😁.

The issue with the franchise is that when it began 22 years ago, to the chagrin of fans of the tv show, it's selling point to general movie goers was essentially seeing the world's biggest film star playing his version of James Bond. The appeal lay in who it's leading man was and not in it's stunts and for much discussed and documented reasons, domestically, it's leading man has been nowhere near universally popular or beloved for the last 12 years at least.

The concern it seems is what with reviews now factoring into the success of blockbuster/potential blockbuster movies the negative reviews of Valerian could kill any chances it had at the box office. Also Luc Besson has never really been a critic's favorite (for some he's nothing more than a slightly more talented and idiosyncratic French equivalent of Michael Bay). Blade Runner might be a better example to use than 2001 as on it's initial release it was the 2nd top grossing film of 1968 (with subsequent releases it's now surpassed that year's top film FUNNY GIRL) and gained Kubrick an Oscar nomination for Best Director so despite critics of the day trashing it for being 'cold' or too 'out there' it's impact was immediately felt.

I've read elsewhere that the character was simply no longer popular domestically by the time the third film rolled round. Both Rambo and Rocky sequels in '85 benefited from the spirit of patriotism that was in the air that year and come '88 that was no longer there.

That seems to be the thing with Wright's films or at least the assumption as to why they've never broken out huge in that his protagonists are either not conventionally likeable or in the hiring of Cera and potentially Elgort his choice of leading men aren't convincing or naturally capable enough to headline what are, lower budgets notwithstanding, the kind of summer blockbusters that made stars of the charismatic likes of Tom Cruise and Michael J Fox 30 years ago.

Beverly Hills Cop was number 1 in '84 not Ghostbusters.