WTF Happened to Losin’ It?

Last Updated on January 5, 2023

Pop quiz – what’s the most obscure Tom Cruise movie? If you’re thinking Lions for Lambs or maybe Far and Away, or even my beloved All the Right Moves, you’re wrong. Tom Cruise’s most obscure movie ever is, without a doubt, 1983’s Losin’ It. One of four films Cruise made in 1983 (along with The Outsiders, Risky Business and All the Right Moves), this had the misfortune of being released just a few months before Cruise’s career took off. It only made just over $1 million at the box office but would have easily made many more times that had it been held just a few more months, with Cruise becoming a household name by the end of that summer.

So why is Losin’ It so obscure? It’s a strange addition to Cruise’s filmography in that it’s a wacky sex comedy that has more in common with Porky’s than it does the classy Risky Business. In it, Cruise plays one of four teenagers trying to lose his virginity on a road trip in the early sixties. Two of his buddies are played by Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach in Watchmen) and John Stockwell (who became a solid director year later), and the object of his lust is played by Shelley Long, who was on Cheers at the time. The movie was a flop, and probably something Cruise would like to forget, with it notably also coming from director Curtis Hanson, who would go on to make classics like The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys later in his career. Is Losin’ It bad enough to deserve its highly obscure place in Cruise’s filmography? We dig into it in this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie, which is edited by Cesar Gabriel, written by Bryan Wolford and narrated by Mathew Plale.