Tom Hanks Admits He “Hates” Some of the Movies He’s Been In

Tom Hanks is nothing short of a household name, delighting multiple generations of fans with his onscreen performances. While Hanks has been associated with a slew of iconic movies, it sounds like he doesn’t have the most positive outlook on every facet of his filmography. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Hanks flat out admitted that he “hates” some of his movies, and then went in depth about the various phases of reckoning with a particular project.

“Oh, yeah!” Hanks argued, before adding, “O.K., let’s admit this: We all have seen movies that we hate. I have been in some movies that I hate. You have seen some of my movies and you hate them. Here are the five points of the Rubicon that are crossed by anybody who makes movies. The first Rubicon you cross is saying yes to the film. 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. That has nothing to do with Rubicon No. 3, the critical reaction to it-which is a version of the vox populi. Someone is going to say, “I hated it.” Other people can say, “I think it’s brilliant.” Somewhere in between the two is what the movie actually is. The fourth Rubicon is the commercial performance of the film. Because, 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.”

“The fifth Rubicon is time,” Hanks continued. “Where that movie lands twenty years after the fact. What happens when people look at it, perhaps by accident. And a great example of this is “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which was made [in 1946] and disappeared for the better part of, I’m going to say, twenty years, locked up in a rights issue. It wasn’t even viewed at the time as being a commercial hit. Enough people liked it, so it was nominated for Best Picture. [The film only became a universally admired Christmas classic after the copyright ran out in 1974 and it entered the public domain, becoming a television constant.] For me, it happened on a movie that I wrote and directed called “That Thing You Do!” I loved making that movie. I loved writing it, I loved being with it. I love all the people in it. When it came out, it was completely dismissed by the first wave of vox populi. It didn’t do great business. It hung around for a while, was viewed as being some sort of odd, kinda quasi-ripoff of nine other different movies and a nice little stroll down memory lane. 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.”

What are Tom Hanks’ next movies?

Hanks will next appear in the ensemble of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, as well as the upcoming Robert Zemeckis movie Here. In Asteroid City, the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention (organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition) is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.

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