“I wrote a story last summer [for the Toronto Star] about Tom Cruise that sparked a lot of email and walk-up conversations from women. Every single one of them, young and old, said they no longer liked Cruise. Many expressed the belief that he’d gone crazy. It was surprising to me how firm and how consistent they were in their opinion. I’ve talked to many women since, and their view of Cruise hasn’t mellowed one iota. He’s damaged goods as far as women go, while men never had that much time for him anyway. I find off-the-cuff reactions from people to be a much better judge of things like this than so-called experts or bogus surveys.
It’s that magical thing called ‘buzz,’ and it cuts both ways.
It’s going to be very interesting to see how M:I:3 does. It will have to attract a sizeable number of women — those guys all need dates — if it is going to do socko numbers.” — Peter Howell, critic and feature writer, Toronto Star