CRUISE CONTROL TOM'S STILL TOP DRAW.

Byline: GREG HERNANDEZ Staff Writer

It was 20 summers ago that Tom Cruise starred in ``Top Gun,'' his first $100 million-grossing movie. He's been divorced twice since then and is now engaged to Katie Holmes, has become a father of three, and has very publicly embraced Scientology.

But one thing hasn't changed since 1986: Cruise as a top box office draw. Since ``Top Gun,'' 12 more movies headlined by the actor have grossed $100 million or more domestically, including the last six in a row.

Cruise's latest film, ``Mission Impossible III,'' kicks off the summer movie season May 5, opening only weeks after the birth of Cruise and Holmes' baby daughter.

With his good-guy image taking a battering during the past 12 months for such things as dancing on Oprah's couch and blasting Brooke Shields for taking prescription drugs to battle post-partum depression, the question is whether the controversial superstar will maintain his box office supremacy.

``Tom's biggest movie has been `War of the Worlds' and we want to try and do better than that,'' said Rob Moore, president of worldwide marketing, distribution and operations for Paramount Pictures, the studio behind the film.

In an interview Wednesday from Paris, where the film had its latest European premiere, Moore said judging from fan reaction, the film should be well-received when it opens on more than 8,000 screens in the U.S. next week and 20,000 more screens worldwide.

``People are really responding to this movie. You can just feel the excitement,'' Moore said. ``Tom is really having a great time and has always been somebody, more than anyone I've seen in this business, who understands and appreciates how much of his business is done outside the U.S.''

Last summer, Cruise headlined the Steven Spielberg-directed ``War of the Worlds,'' which was a major hit both domestically and internationally.

But ``Worlds'' was released amid a flurry of negative press about Cruise's quickie courtship of and engagement to Holmes and some uncharacteristic behavior while on the film's publicity tour. Still, with a domestic box office haul of $234.3 million, ``Worlds'' became the highest-grossing film of the actor's career.

The state of Cruise's box-office potency is even more important this year with ``MI: III'' kicking off the all-important summer season, a period of time when about 40 percent of all movie tickets for the year are sold.

``Even though Tom Cruise has gone a little nuts recently, he is still a huge action star in this picture,'' said Gitesh Pandya, editor of the Web site BoxOfficeGuru.com. ``But certainly some people who are turned off by Tom Cruise will skip this movie just like `War of the Worlds.' The numbers for that film were great, but might have reached $250 million.''

Others also see a slight slippage in Cruise's star power, which ignited in 1983 when he starred in the surprise hit ``Risky Business.''

James Ulmer, founder of The Ulmer Scale, which tracks the global star power of actors and directors, published its annual Actor's Hot List two weeks ago. Once again, Cruise was No. 1 on the list, which is based on an actor's ability to get a movie made based on his involvement alone. But for the first time since 1990, Cruise did not have a perfect score.

``He's still the number one action star in the world but there are cracks in the teflon,'' Ulmer said. ``For a star like Tom, it means that people are questioning some of his behavior. The jokes that are constantly in the media about his (sexuality) and his Scientology allegiance show that either his publicity machinery is not being controlled to the extent that it was or that there is something of a pressure-cooker that is actually affecting Tom.''

Henry Schafer, whose company has compiled Q-scores of celebrities for four decades, ranking their familiarity as well as positives and negatives in terms of public appeal, said Cruise's negative ratings have grown due to his behavior last year on various public stages.

``He's definitely created a more polarized reaction, which is good and bad,'' said Schafer, executive vice president of Marketing Evaluations Inc. ``There's a more emotional response from fans and nonfans alike, but people are more likely to pay attention to what he has to say. They are focused more on what Tom Cruise is doing now more than in the last couple of years.''

With a new baby to bounce on his lap, Schafer thinks Cruise can get his negatives back down.

``This could all turn out to be a good thing if he plays it right,'' he said.

Morris Reid, managing director of the brand agency Westin Rinehert, said Cruise's image has actually improved since last spring.

``It appears that he is peaking at the right time and has pulled himself together,'' Reid said. ``He has not had any outbursts. I think people still think he's crazy, just not as crazy.''

And whatever their opinion of Cruise's off-screen life, Reid thinks the actor, a three-time Academy Award nominee, has something that will always allow him to maintain his stardom: talent.

In some of his lower-grossing films, Cruise has shown more range, in such parts as a misogynistic motivational speaker in ``Magnolia,'' the paraplegic Vietnam War veteran in ``Born on the Fourth of July'' and the hitman in ``Collateral.''

``Whether he is taking on an action movie or doing something darker, we know he's an exceptional actor,'' he said.

For all of his perceived missteps of late, publicist Michael Sands thinks Cruise is any studio's dream because of his willingness to interact with the public and to be photographed.

``By Tom Cruise making himself available to the paparazzi, it's the cheapest form of publicity for the studio,'' Sands said. ``He doesn't do that many movies and yet everything is Tom Cruise. Week in and week out, this is Tom Cruise's soap opera. He's guaranteed to drive his own box office.''

For its part, Paramount claims to be unconcerned about the publicity surrounding the baby's birth overshadowing the studio's major summer release.

``Ultimately, it's great for him personally that he has a new baby in his life,'' Moore said. ``The only relevance to us is how great it is for Tom.''

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CAPTION(S):

5 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) ``The Last Samurai''

(2 -- color) ``Mission Impossible 2''

(3 -- color) ``Mission Impossible 3''

(4 -- color) ``Jerry Maguire''

(5 -- color) ``War of the Worlds''

Box:

TOM'S TOP GUNS