Is Tom Cruise back on top?

Tom Cruise's latest blockbuster 'Oblivion' has provided the actor with his best opening weekend in seven years, hitting number one in the box office chart.

The high-concept sci-fi thriller opened in the US to $38.1 million (£20.8 million), which though not enormous by blockbuster standards, is the biggest first weekend for a Cruise film since 'Mission: Impossible III' in 2006.

[Related story: 10 awesome facts you might not know about Tom Cruise]

Added to the solid figures that it turned in around the world - it was released in most territories last week - it is approaching $150 million (£98.5 million) already, well in excess of its $120 million (£78.8 million) production budget.

It shows that perhaps Cruise has got some of his box office sway back, after a few years of mixed fortunes at the multiplexes.

The 'Mission: Impossible' series aside, Cruise has no connection to any other long-standing franchise, and his films have not done anything like the business he was previously counted on to deliver.

Last year's 'Jack Reacher', though profitable, was one of the lowest grossing Tom Cruise pictures of the last decade, making a third of the cash raked in by 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' and just $15.6 million on its opening weekend in the US.

Meanwhile, 'Rock of Ages', the adaptation of the successful juke box musical, was a disastrous box office failure, making $56 million but having cost $75 million to make. That said, Cruise's performance was noted as being the best of a bad bunch.

Time was that Cruise was guaranteed box office gold, but such mixed fortunes have been dogging his productions for several years now.

Matters in his personal life are likely to have had an effect, including his ties to the controversial Church of Scientology in the US.

Some of his remarks have caused raised eyebrows too, particularly his belief that psychiatry should be outlawed as a 'pseudoscience'.

The now infamous moment when he 'jumped the couch' during an appearance on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' in 2005 – when proclaiming his love for his now ex-wife Katie Holmes - has been much parodied, and crystallised as the moment when he 'jumped the shark' – the phrase attributed to a marked decline in a career, first coined after the Fonz water-skied over a shark in 'Happy Days'.

Now 50, Cruise also appears to be doggedly hanging on to action roles – 'Oblivion', 'Jack Reacher' and his forthcoming 'All You Need Is Kill' being evidence of this, while other actors of his age and standing have moved further into drama.

Despite having proved his skills as a dramatic presence on-screen, never more so than in the devastating 'Magnolia', arguably the finest performance of his career, he has rarely revisited such roles.

But with 'All You Need Is Kill' - another high-concept sci-fi actioner directed by 'The Bourne Identity' helmsman Doug Liman – heavily anticipated, and a solid performance from 'Oblivion', it could be that Cruise back on the money again. Maybe hanging on to the action roles is the right move after all...