Al Gore may have invented the internet, but Tom Cruise invented the international press tour.
The Edge of Tomorrow actor, 51, stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live this week, and argued to the talk show host that he invented the concept of global promotional tours for movies.
Cruise told Kimmel, 46, that he went on his first world tour for his star-making 1986 classic, Top Gun.
“It was amazing,” he said. “We traveled all over the world… Italy, Paris, Japan… I always wanted to travel… It took four months, this tour. We used to do these tours foreign and it would take months. You’d spend weeks in one place, which I loved spending that time. I was working, Scorsese was editing The Color of Money, [there] was an early draft of Rain Man, and I was there in Paris, and I thought, ‘I wanna make movies.'”
“That’s when I kinda came up with the idea of doing like, a country, and I thought we’d do a country in a couple of days,” he continued. “I like premieres. I came up with the idea of, let’s have premieres in different countries, and then kinda do it that way.”
Cruise’s ownership of the concept prompted Kimmel to marvel, “You started that?”
The Mission: Impossible star responded, “Yeah, I came up with that. It took me a few years to get it going.”
It may have taken Cruise a bit for his concept to go mainstream, but last week he attended three world premieres of Edge of Tomorrow in London, Paris, and New York City, all in one day. He also recently traveled to Toronto for the Canada premiere.
Watch Cruise speak about his Hollywood invention in the clip above.
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