Tom Hanks loves that his most underrated movie is now a “cult classic”

Even Tom Hanks would admit that not everything he's made has been brilliant but he's delighted to see one of his films develop into a real cult classic.

Tom Hanks in a Man Called Otto

If there’s one thing that we can all agree on, it’s that almost everything Tom Hanks touches ends up being brilliant. That’s how he’s made some of the best movies of all time, and we presume his general good fortune is what made Tom Hanks the nicest man in Hollywood and earned him his reputation as one of the best actors working today.

 

Still, not everything the Hankster (Yeah, that’s what I call him) has made has been cinematic gold. The Money Trap, for example, springs to mind, a film which if I was writing a list of the best comedy movies would have no place on that list. Even some of Hanks’s new movies have been stinkers. Is there a person alive who likes Angels & Demons? Probably, but we don’t want to meet them.

Anyway, Hanks isn’t a fool and he knows he’s made a bomb or two. Don’t believe us? Well in an interview with The New Yorker, the star confessed that even he hates some of his movies. Pretty strong words from a guy whose default state appears to be one of delighted zen.

However, Hanks being Hanks, put a positive spin on this part of the conversation. That positivity came about when Hanks mentioned the 1996 movie That Thing You Do!, in which Hanks made his debut as a writer-director as well as appearing as the manager of the central one-hit wonder pop act.

The movie wasn’t exactly a box office phenomenon when it hit theaters, but it’s gone on to develop a cult fan base and is considered one of the best Tom Hanks movies by some of those fans. Unsurprisingly, this makes Hanks even more happy.

He said: “I loved making that movie. I loved writing it, I loved being with it. I love all the people in it. When it came out, it was completely dismissed by the first wave of vox populi. It didn’t do great business.”

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Hanks added: “It hung around for a while, was viewed as being some sort of odd, kinda quasi-ripoff of nine other different movies and a nice little stroll down memory lane. Now, the same exact publications that dismissed it in their initial review called it ‘Tom Hanks’s cult classic, That Thing You Do!’ So now it’s a cult classic. What was the difference between those two things? The answer is time.”

For Hanks, it seems time heals all wounds. That Thing You Do! might not reach the heights of the star’s Oscar-winning classics, which are among the best drama movies ever made, but it’s a fun ’90s gem, and we’d love to see Hanks behind the camera again.

For more about the great man, check out why Tom Hanks’ best movie made even him cry, and learn about how Tom Hanks debuted in a horror movie you haven’t seen