The highly anticipated film The Firm starring Tom Cruise opened in theaters (June 30) just prior to the busy July 4th weekend, grossing $25.4 million to open No. 1 and would remain in the top spot for 3 weeks en route to its $270.2 million worldwide take.
“The Firm” dethroned “Jurassic Park,” which had held the top spot since its opening four weeks prior and would eventually be the highest grossing movie of all-time at $978.2 million before being topped by James Cameron‘s “Titanic” in 1997. In its second week, “The Firm” held off the new competition from “In the Line of Fire” starring Clint Eastwood (No. 3 at $15.3 million), the baseball comedy “Rookie of the Year” (No. 5 at $9.1) and “Weekend at Bernie’s 2” (No. 9 at $4.0). “Poetic Justice” starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur would open at No. 1, grossing $11.7 million to take “The Firm” out of the top spot after a month in theaters.
“The Firm” would finish No. 3 in the 1993 box office race trailing only “Jurassic Park” and the Harrison Ford blockbuster “The Fugitive.”
“The Firm” currently sits just behind “Top Gun” ($374 million) and “Jerry Maguire” ($274 million) and ahead of “Knight & Day” ($262 million) and “A Few Good Men” ($243 million) on Cruise’s career box office chart.
In addition to having Cruise headline the film in his first role after 1992’s blockbuster “A Few Good Men,” “The Firm” had a built-in audience by virtue of its global bestseller by John Grisham, which eventually sold over seven million copies following its 1991 release. 1993 was a breakout year for Grisham at the movies as well with his third novel, “The Pelican Brief,” also adapted into a major motion picture with a big-name cast led by Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington and hitting the silver screens in December.
Oscar winning director Sydney Pollack was at the helm for what would be his biggest worldwide box office smash, besting his previous efforsts Out of Africa ($258.2 million) and Tootsie ($177.2 million).
Cruise stars as Mitch McDeere, a top Harvard Law School graduate who spurns the nation’s top law firms to join the boutique firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke in Memphis. Mitch and his wife Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn) are given a new house, new Mercedes-Benz and the firm pays off his student loans. Senior partner Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman) takes Mitch under his wing, including a work trip to the Cayman Islands where the firm has multiple condos.
Mitch soon ends up entangled with the FBI (led by Ed Harris as agent Wayne Tarrance), who informs the young attorney that his small Memphis firm is the sole legal representative for the Morolto crime family in Chicago that includes tax fraud and money laundering for the mafia. Mitch learns that his house, office, and car are bugged and agrees to cooperate for $1.5 million and his brother Ray’s (David Strathairn) release from prison all while being blackmailed by the firm’s shady security chief Bill DeVasher (Wilford Brimley).
Spoiler Alert:
JUST in case you have yet to watch “The Firm” or haven’t seen it in a while: Of note, there was a lot of chatter when the film was released in the summer of 1993 due to the movie changing the ending of the book.
The film ends with the McDeeres returning to Boston in their old car and Ray and Tammy with a new life on a boat in the Caymans with the fortune Mitch obtained for him. Mitch serves up the firm on a silver platter to the FBI with countless instances of mail fraud due to overbilling their clients.
Meanwhile the book ends with Mitch, Abby and Ray enjoying their newfound wealth in the Caymans including the $10 million from one of the firm’s Grand Cayman bank accounts that Mitch stole following his copying of over 10,000 documents detailing over 20 years of illegal transactions that gave the FBI probable cause for search warrants for the firm’s building and its files.
There was also a TV series edition of “The Firm” that aired on NBC beginning in January 2012 and picked up the storyline with Mitch and his family coming out of hiding a decade after the events in the film. Josh Lucas (“Sweet Home Alabama,””Glory Road,” “Yellowstone”) starred as Mitch McDeere, Molly Parker (“Deadwood,” “Goliath”) as Abby McDeere, Callum Keith Rennie (“The Invisible,” “Californicaation”) as Ray McDeere and Juliette Lewis (“Cape Fear,” Natural Born Killers”) as Tammy Hemphill.
The show revolved around Mitch starting his own small firm while large firm Kinross & Clark attempts to acquire it due to their interest in one of McDeere’s clients.
The series was cancelled after one season.
THE FIRM (Rated R)
Scale of 1-10: 8
