Tom Cruise's First Major Movie As A Lead Was A Complete Box Office Flop

Sony

Most young actors aren't thrilled when their first film as a lead gets savaged by critics and bombs at the box office. Tom Cruise, on the other hand, was likely overjoyed when the sex comedy "Losin' It," er, came and went in the spring of 1983.

Cruise was 19 when he made his film debut in Franco Zeffirelli's atrocious "Endless Love." Fortunately, it was a small role, and reviewers were focused on hyperbolically trashing "It Girl" Brooke Shields for giving a perfectly okay performance in a rotten movie. From there, Cruise made a much stronger impression as a gung-ho military academy attendee in Harold Becker's excellent "Taps." Indeed, while the film was intended as a showcase for Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn, Cruise made his mark by imbuing his combat-hungry character with a frightening intensity. He wouldn't be this scary again until Michael Mann's "Collateral." (Cruise is a different kind of unsettling in "Magnolia" and more sexy than horrifying in "Interview with the Vampire.")

"Losin' It" was technically his next movie, but it wouldn't receive a proper commercial release until a few weeks after his fourth film, "The Outsiders," hit theaters. It was helmed by Curtis Hanson, a genre chameleon who'd already written the 1970 Lovecraft adaptation "The Dunwich Horror" and the marvelously nasty crime flick "The Silent Partner" but was still finding his way as a director. Likewise, "Losin' It" looks promising on paper (with a talented cast that also features Shelley Long, Jackie Earle Haley, and John Stockwell), yet it grossed a paltry $1.2 million at the box office against a $5 million budget.

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"Losin' It" was initially titled "Tijuana," which is where Tom Cruise's character and his three friends are headed in the film. And as you'd guess from both titles, these teens have one thing on their mind, and it's not Herb Alpert.

The problem with "Losin' It" is that it wants to be elevated exploitation. Bill L. Norton's screenplay makes it clear that these kids are sex-crazed interlopers. The local population views them with disdain, but they'll happily take their money. Shelley Long steals the movie as a free-spirit desperate for a divorce, and she does wind up deflowering Cruise. (Rosie O'Donnell once asked Long if he was a good kisser, to which she replied, "I would rate him very highly.") But the film clumsily lunges at poignancy, which is wholly unearned. Basically, it's a sex comedy that fails to deliver on the lurid promise of its title.

During a career retrospective discussion at the British Film Institute in 2025, Cruise explained, "It was an incredible learning experience because it was the first time I realized some people didn't know how to make movies, and some people didn't have the same level of passion or quality commitment." To be sure, it's a shame that Curtis Hanson, who went on to make classics like "L.A. Confidential" and the star-studded (undeserving) box office flop "Wonder Boys," couldn't pull the film together. Norton's no slouch either. His "Cisco Pike" is a smart, shaggy Los Angeles crime drama featuring superb performances from Gene Hackman and Kris Kristofferson, and his sequel "More American Graffiti" deserves way more love.

As for Cruise, August 5, 1983 changed everything. That's when "Risky Business" opened, at which point he became the most bankable movie star of his generation.