The only movie Tom Cruise will always regret making

However, for every big movie Cruise has starred in, there’s bound to be one or two he wishes he’d never agreed to, and the actor once admitted that one of his 1985 films, An Adventure directed by Ridley Scott, belongs firmly to the latter category.

Scott had enjoyed great success in 1979. Stranger and the years 1982 Blade Runnerbut he seems to have Cruise all wrong with his epic dark fantasy action Legendin which Cruise stars alongside Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent and Alice Playten, among others.

It tells the story of a “pure being” called Jack (played by Cruise), who is tasked with stopping the Dark Lord’s plans to bring eternal night to the world. There are all kinds of fantasy tropes in Legendincluding goblins, unicorn horns, princesses, deep forests and anything else Scott might add.

But Cruise harbors deep regrets about being involved in the film. One reason is the way the film was marketed, which appears to have upset the actor, who said rolling stone“First of all, the press kind of took this and exaggerated it. It’s a film-film.

Of course, marketing is one thing, but film production itself is another. Cruise spent an entire year in London as the kindly Jack of the Green, but delivered a performance completely devoid of anything remotely resembling the emotional nuance we know he is capable of.

Cruise simply said, “I would never want to do a photo like that again.”

So why did Tom Cruise hate Legend?

Cruise’s dissatisfaction with Legend mainly stems from his disappointment with the outcome of the final film after Ridley Scott made drastic cuts to the original version. The film was originally shot as an epic fantasy tale lasting over two hours, but Scott and the studio cut it down significantly, reducing character development and some of the deeper narrative elements in favor at a faster pace.

Cruise reportedly felt that these cuts weakened the story and diminished the emotional weight of Jack’s journey, turning what could have been a more substantial fantasy epic into a visually dazzling but narratively thin film. He believed that Legend had the potential to be something much greater, and the compromises made during editing, in his opinion, did a disservice to the film’s ambitious scope and the performances of its actors.

Critics also agreed, and critics were not very favorable to Scott’s 1985 effort, although its cinematography was admired and it later became something of a cult classic. One of the worst things for Cruise, however, was that he seemed to enjoy being on set while being unable to see what the final product would be.

“It’s breathtaking and beautiful and poetic, and most of the time I was looking at a piece of black tape and having to imagine it all,” he said. Clearly, the overall experience was not unforgettable for Cruise.

Eventually, Legend is flawed but remains a fascinating piece of fantasy cinema that showcases the visual mastery of Ridley Scott and the unforgettable villainy of Tim Curry. While Cruise’s dissatisfaction with the final product was understandable, given its compromised narrative, the film nevertheless remained a cult classic. For fans of dark and visual fantasy, Legend remains a unique and captivating journey into an enchanted world of light and darkness.

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