JOHN LEO'S BLOG

This naturally raises the question of how Cruise's detractors knew that the receipts for the weekend were low when the weekend was barely half over. A Hollywood friend explained it for me: There's a 10-15-8 rule of thumb for weekend openings. If Friday is taken as a 10, Saturday will be 11/2 of that, or 15, and Sunday will be 8. So Hollywood really has a pretty accurate view of the whole weekend when it sees the Friday numbers.

I assume that the industry is sophisticated about the numbers. It expected the movie to take in $70 million over the weekend, but it took in only $48 million. The assumption is that Cruise shot himself in the foot, and not just with his Scientology-approved marriage.

Cruise's comments on talk shows dismissing the effectiveness of psychiatry and prescription drugs were ruinously bizarre.

Still, $48 million in a weekend is a lot of money. And the movie is very good. I hated the first two Mission: Impossibles and went to see this one only because wife and daughter insisted. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a magnificent villain. Cruise is good, and the director, J.J. Abrams, adapts many of the action tricks that made the TV series Alias come alive. Word of mouth will save Cruise and the movie.