When the discussion turns to the subject of Tom Cruise’s best films, there are plenty to choose from – most if not all of the Mission Impossible titles, Top Gun: Maverick, Risky Business, Minority Report, Jerry Maguire, Rain Man…
And yet, you’ll hardly ever hear Vanilla Sky get a mention. That’s not too surprising. The psychological thriller, directed by Cameron Crowe was given a lukewarm 42 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was met with mixed reviews from movie critics when it was released in December 2001. Nevertheless, it still managed to recoup it’s budget and in fact made a profit, grossing $203.4 million worldwide at the box office.
English language remake of Spanish psycho-drama
Vanilla Sky is a remake of a Spanish film – Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) which was released four years previously. Both films starred Penelope Cruz as Sofia, as the main character’s love interest.
Cruise was blown away when he watched Abre Los Ojos at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and according to some reports, wile the credits were still rolling, ran out into the theater lobby, picked up his phone, and insisted, no matter what it took, on securing the film rights. Which he managed to do.
Vanilla Sky had a production budget of $68 million – and a sizable chunk of that went on filming just one scene. The opening scene sees Cruise’s character David Aames Jr. waking up, getting into his sportscar then driving through Manhattan’s Central Park West which, he begins to notice is eerily quiet with nobody about. Aames starts to get really worried when he gets to Times Square – always a hive of activity, is completely deserted.
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Times Square vacated for Tom Cruise movie scene
To film the scene, the director (Cameron Crowe) had to request permission from New York City’s local authorities to cordon off several roads on the Upper West Side as well as Times Square. To close the filming locations off, authorization was required from several different institutions as well from city mayor Rudy Giuliani and New York City Police Department.
Closing off Manhattan and Times Square, even for a short time, comes at a price. The three-hour slot that Crowe, Cruise and the production team were allotted to film the scene cost $1 million.
Cruise and Crowe rehearsed the scene over and over again before shooting to leave nothing to chance. Filming took place on a Sunday morning to cause the least disruption.
Curiously, Amenábar had exactly the same issue to deal with in the original. In one of the iconic scenes from the movie, lead actor César (Eduardo Noriega) is confused to find himself completely alone, no traffic or pedestrians, on La Gran Vía, one of Madrid’s busiest thoroughfares in Abre Los Ojos. Madrid’s City Council granted Amenábar a short window in the early hours of August 15 1996, a national and regional holiday, to shoot the scene which was completed in three takes.
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