Posted on 08/22/2006 7:18:12 PM PDT by Xth Legion
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Paramount Pictures has severed its 14-year-old ties to Tom Cruise's production company because of his off-screen behaviour, the chairman of the studio's parent company said on Wednesday in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
The report signalled the end of one of the most lucrative production deals commanded by any A-list Hollywood star and followed other signs that Cruise's public stature had been damaged by his conduct during the past year.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.reuters.co.uk ...
Look at the profit margin those movies made. He's done.
Did they really have baby? Haven't seen any proof of one. What was the SINGLE Ms. Holmes thinking? Has anyone seen her after the "birth"?
Do you know how many films flat out flop and still get actors big roles time in and out? Colin Farrell can't bring in an audience to save his life yet still get leading roles. Cruise is one of the most bankable names around.
Cruise is toast! His ass belongs to Xenu now. LRon wouldn't have him anymore.
No, he's not done. The profit margin on those movies is just fine when ancillary and foreign are added in. They don't toss $100 mil budgets at someone just because he has a development deal with them. George Clooney's made nothing but huge losers and he's far from "done"--Cruise movies consistently make over $100 mil; Hollywood looks for someone who can open a movie, and Cruise does that. The profit margin is more about the studio and the producers.
Crusie hasn't been kicked out of the industry; he's just lost a development deal. He no doubt has development deal offers from every other studio sitting on his desk right now. This kind of thing happens all the time.
Glad I didn't spend ticket bucks to see it at the theatre. Now HBO has apparently decided to run it every 18 hours or so, just to rub it in..
That's not really the point. He was saying that Brook was crazy, then he goes an pulls the Oprah stunt and comes off wackyer than a baboon.
Except for the ensemble "Ocean's" movies and "The Perfect Storm" and the Batman movie he did, Clooney's never had a +$100 mil hit. Cruise, on the other hand, rarely has had an under-$100 mil performer.
Unless he signs onto a helluva blockbuster script, I still say the public is sick of him and his strange antics. Don't think he'll bring in the masses anymore. Say what you want, but he's a freak and makes people uncomfortable and not willing to shell out good money to watch him on the big screen.
I think you've got me mixed up with someone else. I've been talking about Cruise, not Clooney.
The only problem with this is the studio's statement. If this were just a run-of-the-mill business deal, they should have issued a boilerplate statement about how Paramount and Cruise "mutually agreed to pursue other ventures" or some other such feel-good mush. Instead, Sumner Redstone called out Cruise's behavior.
There's something else going on here - my feeling is that Paramount has just fired a shot across the bows of all the A-list script readers in Hollywood. Namely, I think they're saying, "In case you haven't noticed, our industry isn't doing so good these days. It's time you guys shared some of the pain." It'll be interesting to see how the rest of Hollywood reacts to this, as well as the Scientologists.
The facts don't bear you out. WOTW was released at the height of the publicity over his idiocy and still made a ton.
What Cruise can do now, in the year 2006, is to sue Paramount for civil rights damages... religious discrimination or whatever.
*Snicker*
Looks like Cruise fatigue has set in and the studios are sick of paying his ridiculously high salary.
Cruise has always, always given me the willies. IMHO this jerk is an unconvincing actor and incapable of functioning rationally without a script to follow.
I can grasp the paranoia all celebrities must feel regarding safety issues...but Cruise is off the chart here.
I have this creepy belief that Cruise and Travolta and other celebrities hooked into that totally vile scientology cult bull$hit are drowning from its heavy rule laden weight.
Worse, they are susceptible to blackmail out the ying-yang since scientology is ALL ABOUT the PSYCHOLOGY it professes to despise.
Audit sessions, at thousands per hour, over years, capture each members deepest shame, deepest secrets and could easily be used by the folks running the show at the top as the perfect blackmail machine.
Audit sessions are series of questions and answers designed to rid the cult victim of all of his or her 'nasty', 'effectual', 'nonproductive thoughts or prior actions' in the effort to rid them of all negatives in their character. ( Negatives as defined by its originator, that is.) (Hubbard believes all these negatives derive from an outer space invader.)
Therefore, there is a drive in this cult to bring in celebrities (rich celebrities, that is) who may be susceptible the to bull#hit scientology has to offer (at a price, A GREAT BIG PRICE, of course.) This drive to capture rich folks, while certainly trying to capture and rob the non-rich, too, is a large part of the cult's work. Scientology puts a huge premium on getting itself inserted into member's wills.)
I truly believe that the biggest part of tom's plight is that he has to promote this cult to protect his big secret (or secrets). And I suspect this big secret has a great deal to do with tom's obvious struggle to appear masculine, heroically masculine.
No one is more disappointed if tom's income drops than the hucksters at the top of scientology cult's dynasty.
About 200 million short of expectations according to the story (worlwide sales) so it may not have tanked, but it didn't do "quite well".
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