Despite appearing in a whole range of movies from romance to dramas, there’s one genre that Tom Cruise dominates in – action films.

Whether it’s playing Ethan Hunt, an agent of the Impossible Missions Force or US navy pilot LT Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell in Top Gun, the actor can usually found in the midst of a high octaine situation or fight scene.

However, Cruise has an unexpected clause in his movie contracts that most people don’t know about. 

Cruise is almost always playing the hero and is one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors, earning him a lot of hardcore fans along the way.

Top Gun: Maverick broke a slew of records this year – it was the highest grossing film of the year, bringing in over $1.4 billion.

Top Gun: Maverick broke a slew of records this year – it was the highest grossing film of the year, bringing in over $1.4 billion

It was also Cruise’s highest grossing movie, reaching the billion dollar box office club. 

With this level of success, it’s expected there would be a demand for merchandise and Cruise’s heroic action icons being turned into figures and toys for fans.

Action figurines are not only a favourite among children but also a staple for collectors too.

However, due to a little-known clause in the actor’s movie contracts, this will never happen.

Cruise allegedly has an unusual clause in his contracts that states his ‘likeness’ cannot be used to create any merchandise.

This means that anything with the actor’s face on, including figurines, toys and games would be very difficult to come by.

While they do exist, they don’t look anything like Tom Cruise himself.

According to LadBible, the actor also refused to have his image used for the ‘Mission: Impossible III’ and ‘War of the Worlds’ PlayStation games.

Cruise has an unusual clause in his contracts that states that the actor’s ‘likeness’ cannot be used to create any merchandise

According to LadBible , the actor also refused to have his image used for the ‘Mission: Impossible III’ and ‘War of the Worlds’ PlayStation games

In the ‘Minority Report’ game based on the sci-fi film of the same name starring Cruise, the protagonist has blonde hair to avoid any likeness to the actor. 

People have mixed opinions on Cruise’s decision – one X user tweeted ‘I find the whole concept of deepfake at BEST unsettling… it’s kinda like how there are no video games/action figures etc of Tom Cruise because of some contract thing, it’s like, that’s my likeness, you can’t just use it for your own purposes.’

Another wrote ‘Kinda gotta hand it to Tom Cruise for completely refusing to ever surrender over his own likeness, got ahead of the AI thing. 

‘Say what ya will about him but he treats himself like he’s the brand, won’t let his name be bought and sold and replicated’.

The Mission Impossible actor is not the first to implement strange clauses into his contracts.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s contract limits how ‘badly’ he can be beaten up on screen so he can never lose a fight.

Meanwhile, ‘Kill Bill’ star Uma Thurman reportedly had a long list of demands including a need a luxury dressing room, first class air travel, a minimum ‘three-bedroom H๏τel suite’ and three cell phones to use while filming a movie that never ended up being made.