It is difficult to imagine a Tom Cruise movie being unmarketable, but that’s the reality of the 1988 hit movie Rain Man

Tom Cruise starrer Rain Man faced a massive problem during post-production.

With that title, the marketing team had no idea how to promote the movie.

Tom Cruise is a superstar when it comes to Hollywood. It’s not too much to say that any movie with him in it is bound to do well among audiences. Whether it is Top Gun, Mission Impossible, or any other movie he said yes to, they have done pretty well among critics as well as the box office, barring a few.
Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One (2023) (Credit: Paramount Pictures)
So it’s not every day that a film starring Tom Cruise faces trouble when it comes to marketing. Just say it has Tom Cruise in it, and fans will be on their way to watch it. But once in his career, with one film, the movie star and the whole team of his film were perplexed with what to do with their film and how to promote it.

Tom Cruise’s Movie’s Title Became a Marketing Nightmare

The 1988 movie Rain Man, starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman, was one of the most important as well as successful movies of the decade. But once the movie was done filming, the marketing team faced a new problem. How to market the movie to the audience, as they had no clue how to do it with that title.
Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in a still from Rain Man | United Artists

The movie was a huge success, earning $350 million in the box office, as well as winning quite a few Academy Awards. But before its release, the movie’s marketing team had no idea how to promote the movie or what to do with it. Back in 2017, talking to BBC Radio 1, Cruise said:

Rain Man is another one, we’re like, ‘Can’t figure out a better title for the movie than Rain Man? When it came out, we’re like, ‘How are we gonna sell that? Rain Man, what’s it mean?

He further added:

You know, we’d be in marketing meetings, they’d go, ‘What’s it mean?’ ‘Well, you’ve gotta see the movie.’ ‘But how do we sell that?’ It’s like, ‘Well, I don’t know, that’s your job. We make the movie.’

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The movie’s title became a hurdle in its promotion as no one knew how to market the movie with that title and correlate it with the movie’s storyline. But as they say, it did not matter how they market the movie, as it became a huge success anyway.

Rain Man Had Many Delays During Production

While the movie did very well post release, before the movie went into production, there were many delays. A long list of screenwriters and directors were attached to the project before, and it finally stuck to Barry Levinson as the director. When it came to screenwriters, the comedy-drama was scripted by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass.
Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man (1988) | United Artists
Talking to Rolling Stone, the director of the movie spike of how it was a difficult movie to connect to. This became a problem as the writers and the directors who were attached to the project before kept leaving as they could not find things to relate to the story.

Nobody could quite get a handle on it, make a personal connection.

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Thankfully, in the end, the hands that ended up shaping the movie did an excellent job with it. Being nominated for eight Academy Awards, it won four – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Dustin Hoffman), and Best Original Screenplay. Rain Man is available for streaming on Prime Video