The light and dark of Tom Cruise’s ‘Knight & Day’

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One of the most curious experiments of the summer is Tom Cruise’s ‘Knight & Day.’ James Mangold’s film about a rogue CIA agent (Cruise) and his vigilante globetrotting experiences with a pretty innocent (Cameron Diaz) is in many ways a bold release, not only because it doesn’t have that pre-sold thing so many Hollywood films go with these days (it was a creation of Mangold and a host of big-name Hollywood writers; more on Mangold and that process shortly) but because it’s such an unusual mix of genres, moving from action thriller to romance to screwball comedy to missing-son drama.

My colleagues Claudia Eller and Ben Fritz have broken down the film’s challenges and prospects, looking at the tracking, which has been soft, and Fox’s response to it, which has been to sneak the film this weekend before Wednesday’s release to try to get word-of-mouth to stand in for the built-in expectations that, say, a superhero or formula romantic comedy brings.
Mangold’s film, while potentially satisfying for filmgoers in an environment of one-note summer entertainments, is the kind of movie that creates a challenge for marketing executives. To emphasize one element is to risk alienating people who’d be drawn to the other, and Fox, like any studio releasing a film like this, finds itself caught between going hard after one constituency and trying to offer something for everyone. (A series of television spots – Fox has bought large chunks of airtime over the last several weeks – has alternated between comedy and action emphases.)

And that’s to say nothing of Tom Cruise’s box-office stock and where it sits in this post-Valkyrie (but pre-’MI: IV’) world. Summer isn’t usually the time for drama on the big screen, but it’s shaping up to be a dramatic time for some of the people behind it.

-- Steven Zeitchik

http://twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT