About

Tom Cruise Clinging is a photoshop series featuring a exploitable image of Tom Cruise, taken from a stunt he performed for his film Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, transposed into a variety of unlikely environments.

Origin

On March 23rd, 2015, Paramount Pictures released the full-length trailer for the film Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation^[3]. The trailer featured a much-publicized shot where Tom Cruise clings to the side of a military jet as its flying, a stunt that he performed himself, with no green screen or stunt double. Cruise has said repeatedly that the stunt was "undoubtably the most dangerous thing I have ever done." In order to pull it off, he was tethered to the side of the airplane as it took off at over 160 miles per hour; he had to wear special contact lenses to keep his eyes open.^[6]

On March 25th, 2015, Vince Mancini of Uproxx^[1] posted the first series of images created from the promotional poster He also posted a cut-out he created, so that others could use it as a template.

Spread

The article on Uproxx received 62 comments in 24 hours, many of them user-submitted additions to the photoshop meme. It was syndicated on other pop culture sites like Popist^[2]. On July 31st, 2015, to celebrate the release of the film, Uproxx created another post with more photoshops, this time featuring scenes from Jurassic Park, Game of Thrones, Wolf of Wall Street, and many more.^[3] On August 3rd, the meme was featured on ABC's Good Morning America.^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References