Tom Hanks doesn’t like all of his movies; in fact, he admittedly hates some of them. In a discussion with The New Yorker, published on May 28, the Oscar winner got honest about filmmaking and how sometimes movies that have the potential to turn out good end up being total flops.
“Ok, let’s admit this: We all have seen movies that we hate,” Hanks said. “I have been in some movies that I hate. You have seen some of my movies and you hate them.” He then laid out five “points of the Rubicon” that all moviemakers pass through when creating and releasing a project that indicate how it’ll be received.
“The first Rubicon you cross is saying yes to the film,” he explained. “Your fate is sealed. You are going to be in that movie. The second Rubicon is when you actually see the movie that you made. It either works and is the movie you wanted to make, or it does not work and it’s not the movie you wanted to make.”
The “Asteroid City” star said that during the actual moviemaking process (the second Rubicon), “There’s no way to tell” how the final project will end up because it’s a “slow” and “specific” process that’s mostly fueled by “faith and hope” in collaborators.
The third Rubicon is critical reaction, and while some will hate it and others will love it, “Somewhere in between the two is what the movie actually is.” Then there’s the fourth principle: “commercial performance.” Hanks said, “If it does not make money, your career will be toast sooner than you want it to be. That’s just the fact. That’s the business.”
Finally, the last Rubicon Hanks noted is “time,” which he said is usually the most important factor. Explaining of his own 1996 movie “That Thing You Do!”, “When it came out, it was completely dismissed by the first wave of vox populi. It didn’t do great business.” He added, “Now the same exact publications that dismissed it in their initial review called it ‘Tom Hanks’s cult classic, “That Thing You Do!”‘ So now it’s a cult classic. What was the difference between those two things? The answer is time.”
Hanks didn’t share which of his movies he loathes. But since he’s appeared in over 75 films (and counting), it makes sense that there are more than a few that he doesn’t care for too much. There are also a lot of classic and beloved films in his filmography, though, including “You’ve Got Mail,” “Catch Me If You Can,” “A League of Their Own,” and the “Toy Story” franchise. Last year, Hanks starred in “Elvis,” the live-action “Pinocchio,” and “A Man Called Otto” (in which his son Truman Hanks plays a younger version of himself). He’ll next appear in Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” which will hit theaters June 23.
