While the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are still very much in full swing, eyes are already looking towards the 2028 ceremony that will be held in Los Angeles, California. As is tradition, the host city of the current Olympic Games will hand over the symbolic title to the next city in a big closing ceremony, this year scheduled for August 11th. With Los Angeles being a city so commonly associated with movie spectacles, it only makes sense that the ceremony has some Hollywood flair, and the rumor is that the more daring leading man will be the star of the show: Tom Cruise.
According to Deadline, Tom Cruise is expected to literally drop in when Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo hands the Olympic flag over to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Cruise has already been spotted during the Olympic Games watching various sports while on a break from filming Mission: Impossible 8. While nothing has been confirmed at the moment, Deadline says that fans can expect “a big Hollywood production.”
The Olympics is a Big Stage for Tom Cruise
Host cities often like to add a bit of pop culture representation to their Olympic ceremonies. For the 2012 London Olympics, which also happened to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond films and the release of Skyfall, Daniel Craig was featured as James Bond in a special short in which he escorting Queen Elizabeth to the Olympic ceremony. Given that Tom Cruise is known for pushing himself with death-defying stunts and impressive showcases of skill in his stunt work in the Mission: Impossible films and Top Gun: Maverick, it certainly feels like a fitting pick for the closing ceremony.
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The 2028 Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles from July 14 to July 30 of that year. This will mark the third time the city has hosted the Olympics, the first being in 1932 and then the second in 1984. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is expected to host the opening ceremony and will be the first stadium to host three separate Olympic opening ceremonies. Currently, the 2024 Olympics have been a huge ratings winner, up by more than 60% from the pandemic-delayed 2021 Tokyo Olympics. This suggests that a lot of attention will be paid to the closing ceremony, and Los Angeles certainly wants to do something big. Getting a movie star of Tom Cruise’s status for anything is headline-worthy, but with suggestions that Cruise has already filmed himself doing a skydive and scaling the Hollywood sign, it sounds like he will be pulling off a Mission: Impossible-style stunt for the event.
Meanwhile, Cruise is expected to bring his next Mission: Impossible movie to cinemas on May 23, 2025. The movie currently has no specific title after dropping “Dead Reckoning Part 2” last year.