Tom Cruise’s latest film American Made is, by critical consensus, his best for years. It spent two weeks at the top of the UK box office (albeit with disappointingly low takings) and is currently a close third in the US. Unlike the summer flop The Mummy, American Made is a by-no-means-terrible movie and that’s exactly where the problem lies.

This drug-running caper includes just enough flashy grins and amoral charm to makes us nostalgic for a time when the biggest star on the planet could really open a movie. Now that franchises and superheroes are the only bankables in the business, those glory days seem long gone – but are they? While “Make America Great Again” was never a slogan with global appeal, “Make Tom Cruise Great Again” feels like the kind of mission possible we can all get behind. Here’s how …

1. Sack off Top Gun 2

That was then: flying high in Top Gun, 1986. Photograph: Paramount

Cruise is right to seek a return to his pre-action hero oeuvre, but does he have to be quite so literal about it? Instead of this ill-advised-to-the point-of-insanity sequel, let’s see some contemporary incarnations of the quintessential cocky hotshot.

2. Confront commercial reality

Last weekend’s three-way box-office showdown was about more than money. It demonstrated, under controlled conditions, the way things are in Hollywood. When pitted against either strong intellectual property (Stephen King’s It) or a comic-book franchise ballasted by an ensemble cast (Kingsman: The Golden Circle), purely star-powered movies such as American Made cannot compete. Think you can handle the truth, Tom? There it is. And surely only a bellowing Jack Nicholson could have made the point more forcefully.

3. Embrace ageing

Acting his age? Cruise with Russell Crowe in The Mummy. Photograph: Allstar/Universal Pictures

While we’re telling it like it is, there’s more; market research found that nearly half of American Made’s audience were over 50. No need for Cruise to book a suite at the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel just yet, but this is a sign that the public perception of his all-action output needs updating. Perhaps a palate-cleansing comedy? Or even a mid-life Nancy Meyers? It’s Complicated didn’t do Alec Baldwin any harm, after all.

4. Go easy on the flag-waving

Cruise’s translatable talents are widely admired for an ability to make up any domestic box-office shortfall overseas, but American Made is among his lowest ever international earners. Could that title have something to do with it?

5. Steer clear of superpowers

Mission: Impossible, 1996. Photograph: Allstar/Paramount Pictures

What do the top-grossing actors of 2016 all have in common? Robert Downey Jr, Ben Affleck and Chris Evans all keep a superhero suit hanging up in their closets. But then a real star could never consent to share the spotlight with a franchise in that fashion. At least that’s one excuse for Cruise’s failure to launch Universal’s Dark Universe with The Mummy.

6. But hold on to that franchise

In retrospect, Cruise’s success with the decade-spanning, $2bn-grossing Mission: Impossible series is one achievement that would genuinely justify jumping for joy all over Oprah’s nice clean sofa in your outdoor shoes.

7. No more Cruise Control

Magnolia (1999), directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, won Cruise an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. Photograph: HO/Reuters

He has worked with Stanley Kubrick, Michael Mann and Steven Spielberg, but Cruise is also said to exert an influence over his projects that can exceed that of his director. If he were to allow a great auteur to retake the reins, it might result in a new direction of travel; we’re talking Oscars-bound. Remember Magnolia?

8. Become a brand

“Big agencies have been making adjustments for more than a decade,” says James Andrew Miller, author of Powerhouse, an authoritative history of Cruise’s talent agency CAA. “They can’t afford to rely on movies and television the way they did in the past.” In other words, no actor is too Maverick for merch. Even Johnny “Captain Jack Sparrow” Depp can accommodate the Dior Sauvage fragrance deal, in his pirate’s booty.

9. Remember who completes you

Cruise used to be a sex symbol. Although that’s easy to forget when the image of a gyrating Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder has replaced all other memories in your mind. What would make women want Tom Cruise again? Allowing himself to be cast opposite a female actor of similar age and equal calibre would be a start.

Cruise as Les Grossman – what would make women want him again? Photograph: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

10. Leave the Scientology chat to others

The bad news is you’ve got yourself mixed up with Scientology. The good news is, most moviegoers don’t give a flying thetan. Elisabeth Moss’s polite-but-firm deflection of Scientology-related questions while publicising The Handmaid’s Tale worked a treat.

