kval - // It's the age old 'bums on seats' equation andy. Tom Cruise is a 'name' so people will go to see his next film. You can be the most talented thing on the planet but unless someone opens the door for you and you appear in things that the great and the good are in and so hitch yourself up, you'll never get a look in, plus what Tom Cruise wants, Tom Cruise generally gets. Really glad he's not involved with this now, and he is indeed 5'5 standing on his tip toes. //
I take the broad essence of your point - but I think this is a different situation.
If this was my first novel, and the film option was taken up by Tom Cruise, and I thought he was about as suitable as a cockroach on a wedding cake, I still might consider saying yes, because that would get my work into the mainstream, and I could hopefully have some say in the next film.
But Lee Child is a million-selling word-wide successful author and this was something like his fifteenth best seller being optioned, so he is hardly in a position where he has to take the first option, even if it is Tiddly Tom.
So like I say, I can only assume a nine-figure deal was offered to him, and he swallowed his pride and took it - I can think of no other reason.