TomKat: L’amour with
a box-office punch

“Mr. and Mrs. Smith” made more than $51 million on its opening weekend, and Brad Pitt didn’t even need to treat a talk show host’s couch like a trampoline while maniacally professing his love for Angelina Jolie in order to coax that currency out of movie-goers’ pockets.

Can you imagine what Tom Cruise’s “War of the Worlds” and Katie Holmes’ “Batman Begins” will rake in after these two love bunnies got engaged at the Eiffel Tower? If they showed the two movies as a double feature, it might almost amass enough at the box office to buy out Oprah.

But this is probably a good time to eschew traditional Hollywood cynicism and wish these two smooch muffins our most sincere congratulations. It isn’t often the No. 1 movie star in the world goes ga-ga in public and invites ridicule, but then has the chops to tell the world to sit on it and rotate while he whisks his lady to Paris and proposes.

Tom and Katie met reporters after he popped the question early Friday morning, which is not the typical scenario. Usually when stars get engaged, they do so in CIA-like secrecy. They hire sharpshooters to keep paparazzi in helicopters away from the airspace over their compound. Or they register under assumed names at an undisclosed luxury hotel while wearing disguises, then have their publicists issue a release that includes the sentence, “They hope you will respect their privacy.”

Tom and Katie have taken a different tack. They’re embracing in just about every public venue where an embrace is physically possible. If for some reason Tom needed an MRI, Katie surely would be squeezed into the horizontal tube with him. They’ve exchanged more kisses for public consumption than Richard Dawson used to on “Family Feud.”

Slideshow   Top gun A look at Tom Cruise's career and relationships.

Naturally, this makes it more difficult to rebuke allegations that this tsunami of romance that has drenched these two in recent weeks is a ploy to snag the covers of every magazine save for “Cooking Light.” And frankly, the naysayers have ammunition.

If you’ve been to the newsstand lately, Tom and Katie have elbowed out every other celebrity face. Of course, when you consider that this means fewer images of Ashton Kutcher and Paris Hilton, then Tom and Katie are truly a match made in heaven.

Tom gave Katie a ring that was described in reports as “massive.” She was flashing it on Friday to reporters, although she did not comment on it. In fact, she didn’t comment about anything. She and Tom sat there, billing and cooing, blushing and giggling. In other words, if you want to hear Katie speak, you’ll have to buy a ticket to “Batman Begins.”

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