6 Nov 2026 07:46
Days of Thunder (1990) (Crusing through November, Part 1)
We are Cruising through November this month as we take a look at some of the big swings in Tom Cruise's career - but first we need to look at the final piece of his starmaking 80s run, Tony Scott's 1990 NASCAR movie Days of Thunder.
Join in as we discuss the beginnings of Cruise's relationship with costar Nicole Kidman, the wild producing team of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, the inevitable comparisons to F1, and the many abandoned gestures towards making this simple movie more complex.
Plus: Why didn't Harry (Robert Duvall) want that guy's death investigated? Why was the movie so much more expensive than Top Gun? And, most importantly, which characters will return for Days of Thunder 2 in 2028?
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Next week: Interview with the Vampire (1994)
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Key sources and links for this episode:
- "Fast Cars, Fast Women, Slow Producers: Days of Thunder" (Spy Magazine)
- "How Days of Thunder Changed Hollywood" (Slate)
- "How One Movie Killed the 1980s" by Patrick Willems (YouTube)
- "Thunder Fails to Strike Drivers" (Florida Today)
- "Scientology Doc Going Clear Claims the Church Split Up Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman" (The Daily Beast)
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Check out our past episodes on Tom Cruise:
