As expected, Knight & Day did poorly at the box office this weekend, coming in third to Toy Story 3 in its second week and the Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups. As Kaiser reported Friday, Knight & Day cost a whopping $115 million to make and tens of millions to promote. It took in only $20.5 million over the weekend, which may signal the death knell for Cruise’s action hero career. Cruise has Mission Impossible IV in pre-production, and now that it’s known that he can’t single-handedly carry a film the studio may reduce his role and focus the story on a younger agent. They are also expected to reduce the budget for MI IV.

I like this analysis of the numbers from Box Office Mojo, which points out that unclear marketing along with a focus on Cruise as an unhinged character may have sunk this film. It’s too bad, because Cruise’s performance is earning praise and the movie is said to be decent and entertaining.

Knight & Day enlisted an estimated $20.5 million on around 4,100 screens at 3,098 locations, bringing its five-day haul to $27.8 million. Attendance was below average for a spy movie, and it was Tom Cruise’s lowest in a leading role since Far and Away in 1992 (which had nearly as many viewers from about half the theaters). Mr. Cruise’s last summer action spectacle, Mission: Impossible III, was deemed somewhat of a disappointment, but it still debuted to $47.7 million. Co-star Cameron Diaz has never been as consistent a performer as Cruise, and Knight & Day is a reunion of the two actors: Diaz had a supporting role in Cruise’s Vanilla Sky, which started at $25 million (or the equivalent of over $35 million adjusted for ticket price inflation). Distributor 20th Century Fox’s research showed that Knight & Day’s audience had an even split between genders and that 56 percent was over 25 years old.

Outside of the Mission: Impossible movies, Tom Cruise’s pictures generally aren’t prone to record-breaking launches, and they often enjoy relatively long runs, but, even under the rosiest of circumstances moving forward, Knight & Day is unlikely to reach the $100 million mark that used to be the norm for Mr. Cruise. While Cruise reprised the running man routine that has served him well in the past, Knight & Day was the dramatic star’s first at-bat in the action-comedy genre.

Unfortunately, the movie’s marketers didn’t get the memo: instead of a summer romp, Knight & Day was presented as if it had a similar premise to Collateral, only more brightly lit and with more quips, and the drama was punctuated by the Muse song “Uprising” (also just used to push the V television series). The ads weren’t clear about the movie’s story or tone, leaving only the action spectacle and star power to carry the day. In this context, though, Cruise seemed unhinged (Diaz being the audience surrogate), making the movie an out-of-form self-referential nod to Cruise’s oft-criticized off-screen behavior of recent years. Sensing things weren’t working, the ad campaign shifted gears at the last minute, cutting the Muse song but offering only more generics.

[From Box Office Mojo]

Maybe it was too soon to riff on crazy-making Cruise, or maybe people are just sick of him. This film looks fun to me, but it’s not like I am going to rush out and see it. I don’t blame Cruise as much as the way the story was sold to us, which was somewhat confusing and unappealing as the article mentioned. Still, we’re not forgetting the couch-jumping incident and we don’t love Cruise as the wild-eyed cult devotee he revealed himself as five years ago. Are there any movie stars left who can carry a film, or are we just too accustomed to entertainment that meets our every whim on demand? There’s always Cruise’s buddy Will Smith, whose public persona has never managed to overshadow the characters he plays.

*Note by Kaiser: I just wanted to mention that Knight & Day couldn’t even make the lower-end estimates of $25 million that industry insiders were hoping for. That’s really bad!

Header: Knight & Day poster courtesy of Filmofilla.