Cruise dropped by Paramount (NRR again)

Junior

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5277192.stm

Hollywood star Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures have ended a 14-year working relationship, with both parties claiming to have chosen to sever ties. The film studio told the Wall Street Journal it had decided not to renew its deal with the star because "his recent conduct has not been acceptable". His opinions on use of anti-depressants and his relationship with Katie Holmes have made headlines in the past year. But his business partner Paula Wagner said they chose to leave Paramount. She said Cruise/Wagner Productions had been planning to set up independent financing for their films "for a long time". "For us this is a very new and exciting direction," she told the Associated Press. "We look forward to working with all the studios." Acrimonious In a separate interview with the Reuters news agency, Ms Wagner responded to comments made by Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount's parent company Viacom, to the Wall Street Journal. "Whatever remarks Mr Redstone would make about Tom Cruise personally or as an actor have no bearing on what this business issue is," she said. Mission: Impossible III did not live up to box-office expectations "There must be another agenda that the studio has in mind to take one of their greatest assets and malign him in this way." During the past decade, Cruise's films - which include the three Mission: Impossible movies - have generated more than $2 billion (??1.5 billion) worldwide. But the third Mission: Impossible film put in a relatively disappointing performance at the box office. Despite this, the 44-year-old actor was named the world's most powerful celebrity by US magazine Forbes earlier this year.

Sorry, slow afternoon in the office. But seriously, can't remember the last time a star was dropped when their career was still raking in money.

slotbeggazz

But his business partner Paula Wagner said THEY chose to leave Paramount.

She said Cruise/Wagner Productions had been planning to set up independent financing for their films "for a long time".

dropped?


btw i so dont care about all of this fruity shit, he,travolta and mel gibbon (no mistype) should do a 3 stooges remake, then shoot themself...

Junior

But his business partner Paula Wagner said THEY chose to leave Paramount.

She said Cruise/Wagner Productions had been planning to set up independent financing for their films "for a long time".

dropped?


btw i so dont care about all of this fruity shit, he,travolta and mel gibbon (no mistype) should do a 3 stooges remake, then shoot themself...

Here's more clarification on the matter:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1857065,00.html

Mission over for Mister Impossible

It is hardly the first time that Tom Cruise has caused eyebrows to be raised: that has been happening with some regularity, at least since Hollywood's archetypal leading man abruptly divorced Nicole Kidman in 2001. The difference this time - a difference that may prove to be his undoing - is that the eyebrows in question belong to Sumner Redstone.
The chairman of the world's third-largest entertainment company, which owns Paramount Pictures, publicly abandoned Cruise yesterday, severing a lucrative 14-year relationship on the grounds that his bizarre behaviour was costing millions in lost ticket sales.

"Something happened," Cruise told Oprah Winfrey last year, yelping and screaming and manhandling her sofa in a display of love for his fiancee, Katie Holmes, "and I want to celebrate it."
Mr Redstone, 84, definitely agrees with the first part: something has happened to Cruise. But far from celebrating the changes, the Viacom chairman launched a highly unusual on-the-record condemnation, ending a deal that gave the actor's production company $10m (??5.3m) a year and an office on the studio's Hollywood lot.

"His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount," Mr Redstone told the Wall Street Journal. He accused the actor of committing "creative suicide" with his antics, many of which have centred on his vociferous support for Scientology.

The 44-year-old star of Risky Business, Top Gun, and the Mission Impossible series has been accumulating an embarrassing track record of odd performances. He condemned fellow star Brooke Shields for taking drugs for postnatal depression. He demanded that a Scientology tent be erected beside the movie set of War of the Worlds. And he shouted down the US television host Matt Lauer for daring to suggest that pharmaceuticals might sometimes help treat psychological disorders.

"You don't know the history of psychiatry! I do! ... There's no such thing as a chemical imbalance in the body!" Cruise told Lauer, echoing a key doctrine of Scientology.

Founded by the science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, Scientology views itself as waging a war with psychiatry, arguing instead that the root of human misery lies in the actions of an intergalactic ruler who arrived on earth 75 million years ago with a fleet of spaceships.

Cruise's religion "has become very important in his life, to the point that it may overshadow his career", an unnamed person close to the situation told the Los Angeles Times. Scientology bodyguards reportedly kept watch when Holmes gave birth to Cruise's baby, Suri, in April. Months earlier, a controversial episode of the cartoon series South Park had mocked the actor's membership of the group, additionally stoking other rumours by building the plot around his repeated refusal to come out of a closet.

The chief executives of Paramount and Viacom were described yesterday as being unhappy with their boss's open condemnation of Cruise. Mr Redstone doled out a token amount of praise - "essentially he's a decent guy and a great actor," he said - but argued that commercial considerations had forced his hand. Cruise's conduct, he estimated, had cost between $100m and $150m in lost ticket sales for Mission: Impossible II alone. Female cinemagoers, a crucial demographic for the star, were the most alienated by his remarks.

Ticket sales are down but the money his movies make is still astronomical. Mission: Impossible III is on course to take $400m at the box office, the previous episode made $546m. Studio heads had offered Cruise a far less lucrative contract this year. His $10m deal had been far in excess of amounts paid to Tom Hanks or Brad Pitt for similar arrangements.

Cruise was not commenting yesterday, but his business partner Paula Wagner responded furiously, insisting that the pair had already worked out a better deal for private funding that would allow them to work with multiple studios. "For some reason, Paramount has chosen to negotiate in the press," she said, calling Mr Redstone's remarks "graceless", "undignified" and "not businesslike". The controversy could damage Paramount more than Cruise if Creative Artists Agency, which represents the actor, decides to withhold the services of its roster of dazzlingly famous talent.

Hollywood can be an extraordinarily tolerant place when it comes to bizarre outbursts: Mel Gibson, after all, still has a deal with Disney to distribute his next film, despite an anti-semitic rant when sheriffs' deputies pulled him over for drunk-driving last month. But that incident provoked condemnation, which at least gave Gibson's publicists the opportunity to issue contrite statements claiming that the actor was desperately repentant. The overwhelming response to Cruise's conduct - ridicule - may ultimately prove harder to dispel.

Bsides

Tom Cruise Rules. Sumner Redstone is an idiot for this one.