More from today's VARIETY -- Cruise's people say they walked away on their
own because they got low-balled, with Paramount (my guess) apparently
leveraging MI:III's performance as a way to avoid giving him more money:
-koose.
=============================
VARIETY MAGAZINE
Tue., Aug. 22, 2006, 8:12pm ET
FRISKY BUSINESS
Spunky Sumner severs Par's ties to Cruise
By CHRIS GARDNER, Variety
The 14-year Tom Cruise-Paramount relationship has ended on a note of anger
and outrage.
Cruise and his production partner, Paula Wagner, say they have raised a
revolving fund of $100 million from two hedge funds and are striking out on
their own.
Wagner denounced Sumner Redstone's comments about Cruise as "outrageous and
disrespectful."
Redstone told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that Paramount was ending
its relationship with Cruise because "his recent conduct has not been
acceptable."
In fact, Wagner said, CAA, Cruise's agent, has terminated discussions with
Par earlier in the week.
After making 14 films in 14 years, the studio had declined to renew the
original Cruise deal and offered a sharply reduced pact.
Cruise has been a tabloid-regular over the past year due to his relationship
with actress Katie Holmes and his increasingly outspoken nature about the
Church of Scientology.
Wagner defended Cruise/Wagner's longtime success for the studio, saying that
in the last 10 years, the shingle's product has accounted for 15% of
Paramount's theatrical revenue and for the past six years it has tallied
32%.
Their credits include the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, "Vanilla Sky" and
"War of the Worlds."
----Original Message Follows----
From: "JR" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "David Kusumoto"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,<MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU>
Subject: Re: [MOPO] WSJ: Paramount terminates ties with Tom Cruise
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 22:58:16 -0400
Hollywood has always been about "what have you done for me lately?" -- but
this is ridiculous. It was only 1 year ago that Tom Cruise starred in WAR OF
THE WORLDS which was one of last summer's mega-hits. Since then, the
god-awful MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III came out. Clearly Cruise did nothing
"controversial" enough between the release of those two films to cause
audiences to turn against him personally as an actor. The difference was
that one film was worth watching and the other wasn't. On the other hand, I
expect Cruise will land on his feet and go on to make many more hundreds of
millions in other films, they just won't be Paramount's. It's a very odd
world where a billion-dollar corporation makes critical financial decisions
based on the sort of things cited against Cruise in this article. How
shocking! He bounced up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch (the bastard!)...
he criticized drug abuse (in an incompetent way, yes, but that's clearly
what he was talking about)... and he talked about Scientology (so did John
Travolta and many others).
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
From: David Kusumoto
To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 19:14
Subject: [MOPO] WSJ: Paramount terminates ties with Tom Cruise
FYI, below.
-koose.
=============================
Paramount Ends Relationship
With Tom Cruise's Company
By MERISSA MARR, WALL STREET JOURNAL
August 22, 2006 6:43 p.m.
Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone said his company's Paramount Pictures
is terminating its 14-year relationship with actor Tom Cruise's production
company, citing the actor's controversial and sometimes erratic behavior of
the past year.
Mr. Cruise, the star of Paramount hits like "Mission: Impossible," "Top Gun"
and "Days of Thunder," has based his moviemaking company, Cruise/Wagner
Productions, on the Paramount lot since 1992.
But in the past year, Mr. Cruise's star has fallen in the wake of a series
of public incidents in which he stumped for his faith in the Church of
Scientology; severely criticized the use of antidepressant drugs; and
engaged in sometimes offbeat behavior, such as jumping up and down on Oprah
Winfrey's couch to proclaim his love for actress Katie Holmes.
Paramount now believes that Mr. Cruise's behavior hurt the box office of his
most recent film, "Mission: Impossible III." Now, Mr. Redstone said he wants
to sever the studio's connection to its biggest star.
"As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his
deal," Mr. Redstone said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "His
recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."
A spokeswoman for Cruise/Wagner Productions declined to comment.
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