I want my contract! I want my contract!
Posted on 08/22/2006 4:45:28 PM PDT by Blogger
Caught on Film: A Growing Unease in Hollywood (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1686480/posts
Tom Cruise's Studio Pact Is in Question (BIG pay cut coming)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1674953/posts
Pardon me if I take this with a grain of salt. If Redstone thought he could meet Cruise's outrageous salary demands and still make money he would swallow his pride in a millisecond. Just like everything else in the movie business (I'm not counting drugs and sex obviously) this is all about $money$.
/sarc
Viacom's got a lotta gall...
Absolutely due to Scientology
http://www.xenutv.com/
They still have Jeanine Gawdawfulhole.
Did she give up her gig on Air Amerika?
More...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117948838?categoryid=13&cs=1&s=h&p=0
Frisky business
Spunky Sumner severs Par's ties to Cruise
By CHRIS GARDNER
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."
I want my contract! I want my contract!
Lol, thank you abb. At least Tom is better to look at than a dinosaur!
You just know that Cruise's recent conduct of neglecting to shower box office $$$ on Viacom seems most unacceptable to Mr Redstone.
There just aren't any actors that can guarantee a big box office return anymore. The concept is the star now, and frequently, a big star gets in the way of the believability of the film instead of enhancing it.
Aug. 23, 2006
By Gregg Kilday
Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures are calling it quits after 13 years in business together.
In near simultaneous announcements Tuesday, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone said that Paramount would not renew ties with Cruise's production company Cruise/Wagner Productions because of the actor/producer's "unacceptable" conduct, while CAA released a statement saying it had terminated negotiations with Paramount on behalf of its client Cruise/Wagner because the producers are opting instead to finance their company independently with the help of two hedge funds.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Redstone said, "As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."
The CAA statement said that instead of continuing to negotiate with Paramount, Cruise/Wagner have decided to fund their company through "an unprecedented multifaceted financing deal." The financing is expected to come from two unnamed hedge funds.
Cruise's company, in which he is partnered with producer Paula Wagner, has been based at Paramount for 13 years. Its most recent release was "Mission: Impossible III," which though it grossed $133.5 million domestically and another $259.7 internationally, was judged a disappointment by many.
Cruise has meanwhile attracted criticism over the past year for his public declarations of love for his companion Katie Holmes on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and for his criticism of the use of antidepressant drugs.
Gambino and Bonanno organized crime families?
Well, that is all well and good regarding Wall Street funding....but the fact that another studio didnt snap up Cruise/Wagner is telling.
The latest two hedge funds, Legendary Pictures and Virtual Studios have lost tens of millions in their projects.
More...
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-fi-cruise23aug23,0,4171571.story?coll=la-home-entertainment
Viacom to Break Ties With Cruise
ew York -- Paramount Pictures is severing its lucrative 14-year relationship with Tom Cruise, whose recent off-screen behavior proved to be too much for Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone, who disclosed the superstar's termination Tuesday.
"His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount," Redstone said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Paramount is Viacom's moviemaking arm.
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The unceremonious dismissal of one of Hollywood's highest-paid stars stunned the entertainment industry, with agents and movie executives privately questioning whether talent relations had sunk to a new low.
Redstone's remarks are a sign of the mounting tensions between the major studios and their high-priced talent as movie costs soar.
Neither Cruise nor his lawyer, Bertram Fields, could be reached for comment. Cruise's producing partner, Paula Wagner, hit back at Redstone .
"It is graceless. It is undignified. It's not businesslike," she said. "I ask, what is his real agenda? What is he trying to do? Is this how you treat artists? If I were another actor or filmmaker, would I work at a studio that takes one of their greatest assets and publicly does this?"
Wagner put a different spin on the split, saying she and Cruise decided to go in a different direction after negotiations with Paramount on a new contract collapsed a week and a half ago. Since then, she said, she and Cruise have secured outside funding to establish an independent production company. She declined to provide specifics.
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More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/business/media/23cruise.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin
Fired or Quit, Tom Cruise Parts Ways With Studio
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and GERALDINE FABRIKANT
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 22 — Citing Tom Cruise’s yearlong metamorphosis from pure box-office phenomenon to pop-culture punch line, Viacom’s chairman, Sumner M. Redstone, said Tuesday that Paramount Pictures was ending its 14-year relationship with the actor’s production company.
Mr. Cruise’s representatives insisted that they had not been fired but instead had quit and had already lined up $100 million in financing to produce movies on their own.
Either way, the parting of the ways was anything but amicable. And it came as the latest sign that the media conglomerates that control Hollywood are growing impatient with the megastars who earn the highest salaries.
Last year, Mr. Cruise seemed to sprout cracks in his megawatt-smile facade: jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey’s couch to declare his love for the actress Katie Holmes; assailing Brooke Shields for taking prescription drugs to treat postpartum depression; and speaking out publicly against psychiatry and for his religion, Scientology.
Mr. Cruise’s third installment of the “Mission: Impossible” series has earned nearly $400 million worldwide and could earn half again that much from DVD sales. But its weak opening weekend in May left Paramount executives believing that the negative attention and mockery of Mr. Cruise had hurt the film. Worse still, Mr. Cruise’s rich chunk of the profits could leave the studio barely breaking even.
After weeks of negotiations to extend a production deal, Mr. Redstone said Tuesday that Paramount had given up.
“As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” Mr. Redstone told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the studio’s decision on its Web site. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.”
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More...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115628557000642662.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
Sumner Redstone
Gives Tom Cruise
His Walking Papers
Star Alienated Paramount;
His Production Company
Now May Go Independent
By MERISSA MARR
August 23, 2006; Page A1
As a nearly untouchable star for most of his 25-year movie career, Tom Cruise isn't used to Hollywood studios showing him the door. But after a year of Mr. Cruise's controversial and sometimes odd public behavior, the studio he has long called home is ushering him off the lot.
[Tom Cruise]
In an unusually public rebuke, Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone said that his company's movie studio, Paramount Pictures, plans to end its 14-year relationship with the 44-year-old Mr. Cruise and his film-production company. In an interview, Mr. Redstone, who is 83, was clear about the reason: Mr. Cruise's public antics and incessant stumping for personal causes, notably Scientology, have become intolerable and have been a drag on ticket sales for films like "Mission: Impossible III."
"It's nothing to do with his acting ability, he's a terrific actor," said Mr. Redstone. "But we don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot."
As a consequence, Paramount will not renew the expensive deal that has made the studio home to Cruise/Wagner Productions, the company Mr. Cruise owns with partner Paula Wagner. That deal in recent years paid Mr. Cruise and Ms. Wagner up to $10 million a year to develop films and operate an office on the Paramount lot. Mr. Cruise's representatives had indicated in recent weeks that the star might be willing to discuss a less-lucrative deal to stay at the studio. But now they are parting ways.
"As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal," Mr. Redstone said. "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."
After being contacted by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Cruise's representatives presented a different version of events. They said that Mr. Cruise's production company had decided to set up an independent operation financed by two top hedge funds, which they declined to name. Ms. Wagner said such an arrangement represented a new business model for top actors prominent enough to take advantage of the flood of money coming into Hollywood from Wall Street.
"This is a dream of Tom and mine," Ms. Wagner said. She challenged Mr. Redstone's assertion that Mr. Cruise's behavior had cost the studio ticket sales, pointing out that the star's movies have made the studio a huge amount of money.
Mr. Cruise's agent, Rick Nicita of Creative Artists Agency, said Mr. Cruise was "offended" upon learning of Mr. Redstone's comments. "This was done in an incredibly graceless way," he said.
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I saw something like this coming when Wil Farrell (sp?) invoked his name in Taledaga Nights. TC is nothing but a joke.
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