Featured Image Credit: Paramount
Topics: Tom Cruise
Callum Jones
Tom Cruise is known around the globe for starring in some of the biggest films ever made, including Top Gun and Mission Impossible.
The American actor is believed to be one of the most well-paid film stars on the planet, especially after bringing in the big bucks with a $100 million paycheck for Top Gun: Maverick.
The Top Gun actor has won three Golden Globe Awards, three MTV Movie Awards, and a couple of People's Choice Awards, just to name a few - but surprisingly, the Oscar award has always eluded him.
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While he is mostly known for all his classic films, one fact that many might not have known about Cruise is that he once saved the sunglasses brand Ray-Ban from going out of business.
And that's pretty surprising considering how Ray-Ban is one of the largest providers of sunglasses worldwide nowadays.
Earlier this year, the makers of Ray-Ban and Oakley, EssilorLuxottica, had a reported revenue of £4.9 billion for the first three months of 2022 - a 38 percent increase from the same period in the previous year.
When you hear those numbers, it is hard to imagine that Ray-Ban was close to folding, but back in 1981, there were a lot of concerns for their future.
That year, the ever-popular Wayfarer glasses sold just 18,000 times, with the company in some deep trouble as a result.
But, like Pete Maverick, in swooped Cruise to save the day with a bit of product placement in some of his most iconic films.
When Risky Business came out in 1983, the star wore the iconic Wayfarer Ray-Ban sunglasses, which some say single handedly saved the company.
Before then, Ray-Ban had been expected to discontinue Wayfarers, however, after the release of Risky Business, sales for the glasses shot up an impressive 50 percent, but it did not stop there.
In 1986, when the infamous Top Gun was released, Ray-Ban saw another massive increase of 40 percent, as Cruise starred in the film wearing the classic Ray-Ban aviators.
To this day, he still adores the Ray-Ban brand and is often seen wearing the glasses for various occasions, like when he is promoting a new movie or just out in public.
When talking to reporters in 2013 at the Star Trek: Into Darkness premiere, he was asked if the stylish glasses he was wearing were 3-D ones to watch the movie in style.
The actor simply responded: "No, man. These are Ray-Bans."