Feb
16

Tom Cruise relives his Days Of Thunder behind the wheel at Daytona 500

It’s been 18 years since Tom Cruise posed as a racing car driver for Hollywood hit Days Of Thunder.
But the actor had no problems reprising the role to help kickstart pre-race celebrations at the Daytona 500 International Speedway.
But this time, Cruise painted a slightly different picture to the young hotshot he first portrayed, preferring instead to play the family man.

Cruise brought his father-in-law and adopted son Connor along for company as he got behind the wheel of the same vehicle used in the 1990 film.

Sporting a pair of sunglasses and leather jacket, the star appears to have aged well, looking younger than his 46 years.

There was no sign of ex-wife Nicole Kidman though, who he met on the set of the film and subsequently married. Kidman’s current husband however, country music star Keith Urban, attended the event to perform a surprise two-song set for reporters. Urban took brief questions from reporters and laughed awkwardly when asked what his favourite racing film was. “Uhhhhh … Cars?” he stammered, choosing the animated movie over the more obvious Days Of Thunder that featured his wife as Tom’s love interest.

Later, Urban and Cruise both attended the pre-race driver meeting. The two were seated on opposite ends, but Cruise heartily applauded Urban when the singer was introduced.

Cruise appeared in good spirits, despite his new film Valkyries being panned by critics.*

However, he could be set for a comeback as he is reportedly pairing up with Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington to star in The Matarese Circle, a spy thriller directed by David Cronenberg.

(Source: Mail Online)

*Note: Although the story says “Valkyrie was panned by critics”, the opposite is true: Valkyrie received a lot of praise and scored very well at the box office, despite major competition from block busters like “The curious case of Benjamin Button”, “Marley and Me” and others. Click here to read the most important reviews and here to see the box office numbers.

Pics of the whole event will be online soon!!

Share

February 16, 2009   //   Appearences   //   6 Comments   //  

6 Comments to “Tom Cruise relives his Days Of Thunder behind the wheel at Daytona 500”

• February 16, 2009 at 5:12 pm
  Lili says:

  Sorry but I have to contradict whoever wrote that piece for Mail online. Valkyrie has NOT been panned by critics! Much to the contrary, the reviews have been positive all around! I’m sick and tired of people writing nonsense about Tom Cruise. Enough already!

  Note from Chantal: I couldn’t agree more! I know that you know what you’re talking about and I have to say: that comment in that story really bugged me. Valkyrie received a lot of great reviews. Most of the bad reviews were from reporters who didn’t even watch the movie before writing their bad press stories! So predudicial… and low, if you ask me. Besides, the best reviews came also from well-known reviewers like Roger Ebert. So I decided to edit the post and add the links to the major reviews and to the box office numbers to prove anyone who says Valkyrie flopped, is wrong!
• February 19, 2009 at 11:44 am
  Lili says:

  Thanks, Chantal, for doing such a good job at correcting this comment and showing everyone the real reviews. Love, Lili
• February 22, 2009 at 12:46 pm
  lainie says:

  It did better than anyone expected, but hardly the numbers Tom Cruise was once used to bringing in. I don’t believe it broke even.

  Comment from Chantal: Hi Lainie, there’s no indication the movie didn’t broke even since we don’t have those numbers. What we have is the comments from for example the director and they were very positive and happy with the numbers. If you like to read the posts about the box office numbers you can see what they had to say about it. I’d have to dig into that but I know for sure there were some production figures mentioned and they didn’t exceed the box office numbers.
• February 23, 2009 at 11:57 am
  Lili says:

  The production cost for Valkyrie is $75millions. The domestic BO is now $82.365 millions and the foreign BO stands at over $40 millions as of today and some countries have still to be counted. (from Variety). Do the math…even adding promotion cost it is a winner, sorry, Lainie!
• February 23, 2009 at 8:57 pm
  Lili says:

  WOW! in Monday 23rd issue of Variety:” the foreign BO is now tallied at $83 millions, slightly over the domestic BO….so the total is now: $165.365 millions.

  But most importantly Valkyrie has been largely praised by the critics, so it is a WINNER all around. Hurrah for Tom!
• July 08, 2009 at 12:43 pm
  Randy G. says:

  Man, i think it’s time for a new TOP GUN movie… would be great to see you come back as an instructor and possible have a new actor play your son coming through the TOP GUN class….. well just thought it would sound great and thought i would try throwing it out there..