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.”
You mean a bil for a triology isn't good enough in your opinion? SW and LOTR?
BRAVO!!!!!!!!
Isn't the "# whatever highest grossing movie of all time" thing just an inflation driven number, or does somebody actually calculate yesterday's dollars compared to today?
Fine with me. I've never cared for him. He's not an actor, he's a movie star. Excuse me while I yawn.
Maybe these movies had actors in them. I don't think Tom Cruise was in any of them. I know he wasn't in "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe". Or, for that matter, in "Second Hand Lions". Both of these movies are great. They had a little-known concept known to us old-timers as "ACTING"!
And those stars had class and were patriotic.
Well Pirates is number 57 on the all time adjusted for box office too in just 29 days.
Add on to that dvd sales and rentals, which didn't happen back when and I'd say. There's plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise that movies are still making in lots and lots of money.
I liked those movies too but just because Tom Cruise wasn't in them doesn't mean anything.
I posted three or four movies in posts above that Tom Cruise was in and his acting was really good in them.
If that was a criteria for every movie I saw I'd never see any of them.
Heck even Mel Gibson can meet that criteria today can he?
"The 44-year-old actor is eager to get back to work to put behind him disappointments such as Mission Impossible: III"
There was a Mission Impossible III?
"First, he should cultivate a quieter lifestyle. He should come across as humble, not judgmental"
A Hollywood superstar more humble and not judgemental? Isn't that like telling a pig not to eat sh**?
You have totally lost me. None of the really good movies you mentioned had Tom Cruise in them. Cruise is a model. He strikes poses that line up well for the camera, and that's about it. I have been in a number of theater productions. If Tom Cruise and I both tried out for the part of, say; Elwood P. Dowd, for "Harvey", I would whoop his ignorant ass. Of course, I say this in all humility.
Mr. Cruise was good in The Minority Report, The Last Samarai, Collateral, and War of the Worlds.
I think the author of this article is misinformed. MI III is the ninth highest domestic box office grossing so far this year.
I was the lead in "How to succeed in business without really trying", "Lewis and Clark and the Little People", in which I sang both the bass part for one scene and the high tenor part for another, I played George Bailey in "It's A Wonderful Life", I played the male lead for "You Can't Take It With You", and I was even the lead trumpet for the orchestra for "Hello, Dolly". Not only am I a better actor than Tom Cruise, I am also much better looking. (Of course, I say this with all Humility}.
What forum? And how much money did they make?
He can act. "The Last Samurai" was an excellent movie; a truly superb performance by the entire cast.
Forum? FORUM? A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Forum.... which happens to be one of the few plays we haven't done yet... Just a local theater here in Polson Montana...
but I have to tell you that if I were auditioning for a part in a local play and Tom Cruise was auditioning for the same part I would kick his butt. Especially for a musical. And if it were a simple acting part then Mike Lozar would make him look like the loser girly-man that he is. And this is just local stuff. I don't know why he ever got a job as an actor.
MI III Production Budget: $150 million
Worldwide Gross: $380,872,507
Info from here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.