Posted on 08/05/2006 4:49:22 PM PDT by Pokey78
SUPERSTAR Tom Cruise has joined the ranks of the unemployed. The Hollywood studio that bankrolls his films is not backing any more Cruise movies until he agrees to a significant paycut.
The 44-year-old actor is eager to get back to work to put behind him disappointments such as Mission Impossible: III, but last week his 13-year deal with the Paramount studio was allowed to lapse. Executives say Cruise faces a “financial adjustment and reality check” before he can continue his illustrious career.
Cruise fans fears that, unless the hardworking actor learns some humility, an illustrious career which has matured from the cocky boy of Risky Business and Top Gun to more naunced performances in The Last Samurai and Collateral may burn out. “Right now,” said an insider close to the negotiations, “he is simply too expensive to employ.”
Cruise is not the only star to suffer as Hollywood bosses cut jobs and get tough with expensive talent. Jim Carrey, Mike Myers and Reese Witherspoon are all “on holiday” with no immediate film in prospect, while Brad Pitt recently took a pay cut to play Jesse James.
Last week, soon after the arrest of Mel Gibson for drink driving, the studio crackdown reached younger actors such as Lindsay Lohan.
Lohan was publicly censured by her employers for refusing to put her work above her social life. Her mother said it was an “ungallant” attack on her 20-year-old, daughter who was just a “good girl enjoying herself”.
Studio executives are increasingly frustrated by hit films that leave them impoverished because the stars, as well as directors such as Steven Spielberg, have grabbed the biggest share of the profits. Cruise has become a symbol of the battle for power between studios and their stars, a struggle that dates back to 1919 when Charlie Chaplin set up his own studio, United Artists, to keep the lion’s share of profits from his silent comedies for himself.
Studios are feeling more bullish because many summer hits, from Cars to Superman Returns, have been driven by strong scripts and computer effects rather than celebrities.
Yet by all standards Cruise is a special case. For 20 years the diminutive star has earned the studios billions of pounds. Last year, according to Forbes magazine, he earned £35m from War of the Worlds, still a Hollywood record.
Since 1992 Paramount has paid Cruise-Wagner Productions, Cruise’s private film development company, up to £7m a year to base its office on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles. It also paid for 10 staff. In return Paramount gets the first bite at any Cruise film. Paramount has now refused to renew the deal on its current terms, effectively suspending its work on half a dozen future Cruise films.
Cruise, whose fortune is conservatively estimated at £250m, is meanwhile paying staff out of his own pocket and remains confident it will soon be “business as usual” at Cruise-Wagner Productions. But the abrupt demise of the current deal remains an embarrassing psychological blow after a turbulent year for “the Cruiser”.
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has been battling to hold on to public affections since he decided to shed Pat Kingsley, his long-term publicity adviser who for years shielded him from controversy.
Kingsley would never have allowed him to appear on the Oprah Winfrey television show and jump on top of the couch while declaring his love for the young actress Katie Holmes.
However, that did not affect his popularity as much as criticising Brooke Shields, the actress, for using prescription medicines to ease her post-natal depression: as a Scientologist, Cruise disapproves of all psychological drugs.
“At that moment he moved from the realm of eccentricity to something scary and cruel,” said Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center which studies how films affect society. “It was easier to forgive jokes about eating placenta than what is perceived to be an attack on a vulnerable woman’s real problem.”
Hollywood studios are influenced by Q Scores, an annual poll of a celebrity’s likeability. In the last poll the percentage of Americans who liked Cruise fell from 30% two years ago to 19%, while people who disliked him jumped from 14% to 31%. The next Q Score, due to be released confidentially to the studios next month, is expected to be even worse.
Henry Schaffer, of Marketing Evaluations, which carries out the Q Score polls, said that Cruise has suffered in particular with young women, especially compared with more low-profile stars such as Tom Hanks. “The two Toms used to be neck-and-neck at the top of the Hollywood tree, but the more flamboyant Tom is in danger of crash and burn,” he said.
Schaffer said that Gibson, who is facing drink-driving charges and more intangible damage related to his anti-Jewish outburst when he was arrested in Malibu on July 28, had recently been recovering in public esteem from the extremely divisive release of his last film, The Passion of the Christ.
“This could be a big blow,” said Schaffer. He added that before Gibson’s forthcoming court appearance he should “do a Hugh Grant”: go on American television and apologise directly and with a light touch.
Cruise is a tougher problem, according to Hollywood spin doctors. One former public relations adviser to the actor said that Cruise had two options: defensive or aggressive.
First, he should cultivate a quieter lifestyle. “He should come across as humble, not judgmental, even if it is the best acting he has ever done — because inside he is still a cocky boy, but the times have changed,” said the former aide.
Then, when the time is right, he should make a positive splash with his baby daughter Suri and her mother, Holmes.
While Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt demanded a £2.2m charity donation from People magazine for the first shots of their offspring, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, Suri has been invisible except to a close circle that includes Penélope Cruz, Cruise’s ex-girlfriend. Although Tussauds is already showing a waxen effigy of a bundled Suri in New York, the public is impatient to see pictures of the real baby, born last April.
American tabloid magazines are offering up to £3m for the first snap. Insiders suggest that any baby pictures might be wrapped up into a wedding celebration for Cruise and his 27-year-old girlfriend.
This is not expected to happen until Cruise has sorted out his employment prospects. Like Bruce Willis and Harrison Ford who have confirmed they are returning after a series of flops for a fourth chapter of their Die Hard and Indiana Jones franchises, that may depend on what films he wants to make.
One studio executive joked: “He can get all his perks back when he agrees to make Top Gun 2, in a jet, wearing an oxygen mask. Tom Cruise will have to finally shut up when he is saving the world.”
Who cares' he's a spoild rotten little baby who thinks the world owes him something.
I've enjoyed some of his movies, but this guy can't act.
This girl will marry at age 13 just for the potential name change.
I for one am glad Cruise has been put out of the running for a part in a remake of "3:10 to Yuma" - which is slated to have Russell Crowe in it. Cruise doesnt deserve to be in the same talent sphere as Crowe.
It's kind of nice to see some of these people being held accountable for their ridiculous behavior. Now if we can do it with professional athletes too....
Is anyone out there anxious to see these celeb babies? LOL
I noticed in this article they used "drink driving", that must be the acceptable way of saying it in the UK or something, because I remember a lot of people commenting on what they thought was a typo when they used it in other Mel Gibson related articles.
Sure he can act. It's just that in every movie he is more or less the same person.
His technique is so effective that when he was married to Nicole Kidman, she punctuated her script lines just the way Tom does.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
He won't go hungry since nobody else wants to eat human placentas.
People are impatient to see pictures of the baby? Tom's probably still trying to find one to display to the world if the "real" daughter doesn't exist.
He was excellent in "Magnolia."
Ask some people who were on the carrier when top gun was filmed. They'll tell you what a pompous jerkhole he is.
The stars I like best are those who shun Hollywood like Jeff Daniels. He lives here in Chelsea Mi. I assume he's relatively liberal but you would never know it because he keeps his mouth shut about politics.
It's disturbing to me that there are people who care about the personal lives of charlatans, but probably can't name their own vice president or senator.
And they are many.
Tom Cruise is a horse's axe, no I have more respect for a horse's axe than I do for Tom Cruise. Tom is just an idiot.
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