Director Cameron Crowe Said This Filmmaker Tried to Destroy ‘Jerry Maguire’ by Stealing Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise has many popular movies under his belt, with the famous Jerry Maguire being one of the actor’s highlights. But the film’s director believed another veteran filmmaker tried to take Cruise away from the project, which would’ve been disastrous for the feature.
How Cameron Crowe felt this director tried to sabotage ‘Jerry Maguire’
Jerry Maguire was Cruise’s classic 1996 comedy feature about a sports agent trying to run his own successful business. Director Crowe already recruited a couple of notable actors for the movie like Cuba Gooding Jr. and Renee Zellweger.
But perhaps one of the people he wanted to cast in the film the most wasn’t an actor at all. Crowe tried to persuade veteran filmmaker Billy Wilder to play the role of Dicky Fox. Crowe was a genuine fan of Wilder, and considered the possibility of collaborating with his idol in the comedy.
“I started thinking, Billy Wilder could be so wonderful doing that Dicky Fox character. I built up a whole mythology about how it might work,” Crowe once told Deadline.
Wilder initially refused Crowe’s offer, explaining to Crowe that he wasn’t an actor. But Crowe would later tell Jerry Maguire star Cruise the news, and Cruise wanted to negotiate with Wilder personally. After Crowe and Cruise went to talk to Wilder together about the film, Crowe began to worry that his plan might have backfired. To Crowe, putting Wilder and Cruise in the same room only jeopardized Jerry Maguire.
“Finally we’re saying, come on, Billy, do it. He goes, tell me the story of the movie. They both look at me, and I start telling the story of Jerry Maguire. I could see Wilder is not really buying it, and I realize something as I’m doing this: he’s now going to steal Tom Cruise from me and destroy Jerry Maguire in one move; he was being crafty here,” Crowe recalled.
If that was Wilder’s plan, however, he didn’t succeed. Still, Crowe wasn’t able to convince the director to participate in the film.
Tom Hanks was glad he turned down ‘Jerry Maguire’
Cruise wasn’t the first choice to play Cruise’s role in Jerry Maguire. Crowe had also tried unsuccessfully to cast other actors in the role before landing on the mega-star. Tom Hanks was actually director’s first choice, and Crowe had even written Jerry Maguire with Hanks in mind for the lead. But the Oscar-winner asserted that Cruise doing the film was the best possible outcome for everyone involved.
“I think you look at it now and it couldn’t have been anybody other than Tom Cruise,” Hanks once said according to Contact Music. “It’s the way the movie’s operated. I don’t think anybody would look at that now and say, ‘That movie was not perfect.'”
In an interview with NBC Sports, Crowe shared that Hanks didn’t do Jerry Maguire because the actor’s heart was in another film.
“I had this wonderful conversation with Tom Hanks, and people were waiting in the next room for the answer. And Tom Hanks was so complimentary and so great and said, ‘I’d love to do this, but I’m doing That Thing You Do! and I should be doing that instead of this movie. But good luck,’” Crowe said.
Woody Harrelson regretted turning down ‘Jerry Maguire’
Whereas Hanks believed turning down Jerry Maguire was the right call, Harrelson felt doing so was a mistake. Harrelson’s career has thrived well without Jerry Maguire being a part of his filmography. But at the time, the Cheers alum quickly realized he might have made the wrong judgment call by not doing the movie.
“Yeah. Yeah, that was – that a blunder,” Harrelson told CBS News not too long ago. “And then, like, two days later, I hear Tom Cruise is doing it, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I might have f***ed that up!'”
