Too old and too short

That Reacher role has caused Cruise all kinds of problems. First and foremost theres the opinion since it was announced that he was too short for the role. then the box office was very average compared to MIs etc for the 1st Reacher and near non existent for the 2nd (giving Cruise 2 rare underperformers among his usual hits).. then you had Childs half blaming cruise for the unsuccessful movies ending the Reacher film series saying they should've got someone closer to the book description and that cruise wont be reacher anymore (despite him initially approving cruise saying he was very happy with him as Reacher and that no one could play Reacher but Cruise - he obviously figured Cruise would make Reacher MI level success ) now he's saying he's too old for action movies (just an aside but the Child dude looks about 106)

Cruise must be like 'WTF did I bother' - obviously the intention was that Reacher would be successful franchise like the Bond ..and cruise would alternate between MI and Reacher over about a decade going on to do about 5 or 6 Reacher movies like Bond.. before someone else took over.

However in hindsight it seems abit weird that cruise wanted to do Reacher anyway as it would bring about height comparisons (although maybe figured wasn't that much of a big deal and had already had the intital negative stuff with Lestat and it turned out ok, plus theres been other actors who took on roles despite fan outcry and turned out well - Craig/Bond, Batman/Keaton) and since he already had the action MI series (unless at the time he did Reacher his continued involvement in the MI series wasn't a sure thing..plus stars are probably always looking for multiple franchises/iconic roles to be part of like Harrison Ford, Stallone, Arnie etc)

He is very short for an action star.