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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115628557000642662.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
Paramount Ends Relationship
With Tom Cruise's Company
By MERISSA MARR
August 22, 2006 7:48 p.m.
Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone said his company's Paramount Pictures is terminating its 14-year relationship with actor Tom Cruise's production company, citing the actor's controversial and sometimes erratic behavior of the past year.
Mr. Cruise, the star of Paramount hits like "Mission: Impossible," "Top Gun" and "Days of Thunder," has based his moviemaking company, Cruise/Wagner Productions, on the Paramount lot since 1992. But in the past year, Mr. Cruise's star has fallen in the wake of a series of public incidents in which he stumped for his faith in the Church of Scientology; severely criticized the use of antidepressant drugs; and engaged in sometimes offbeat behavior, such as jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch to proclaim his love for actress Katie Holmes.
Paramount now believes that Mr. Cruise's behavior hurt the box office of his most recent film, "Mission: Impossible III." Now, Mr. Redstone said he wants to sever the studio's connection to its biggest star.
"As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal," Mr. Redstone said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."
A spokeswoman for Cruise/Wagner Productions declined to comment.
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. Paula Wagner, Mr. Cruise's partner in the company, 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.
Write to Merissa Marr at merissa.marr@wsj.com
There was a long NY Times article last week that the "stars" are worried because all the over-the-top deals are going away...
You just know that Cruise's recent conduct of neglecting to shower box office $$$ on Viacom seems most unacceptable to Mr Redstone.