Paramount cuts ties with Tom Cruise

[irishgrl]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/22/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes

Film distribution giant ends 14-year relationship with actor's production company because of Cruise's recent erratic behavior, says a report.
August 22 2006: 8:47 PM EDT


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Paramount Pictures will end its longstanding relationship with Cruise/Wagner Productions, actor Tom Cruise's production company, citing his erratic behavior, according to a report published Tuesday.

Sumner Redstone, CEO of Paramount owner Viacom, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that Cruise's controversial behavior over the last year - including advocating for Scientology and denouncing the use of antidepressant drugs - was the cause for the move.


Cruise has been battling image problems in Hollywood.

The movie company is concerned that Cruise's behavior hurt his most recent film, "Mission: Impossible 3," said the report.

But Paula Wagner, Cruise's partner, disputed Redstone's assertions, according to the report. She told the paper that Cruise/Wagner Productions had decided to set up its own independent operation, backed by two unnamed hedge funds. She also noted in her comments to the Journal that Cruise had made Paramount vast sums of money over the years.

Cruise has worked with Paramount on hit films such as "Mission: Impossible," "Top Gun" and "Days of Thunder."

Cruise has starred in 24 movies producing an average box office gross of $99.9 million, according to The-Movie-Times.com, an online Hollywood database.

In June 2006 Cruise took the No.1 spot on Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's 100 most powerful stars. In the last 10 years all but one of his movies have grossed more than $200 million worldwide. His top-grossing movie was "War of the Worlds" (2005), which topped $590 million around the world.

However Hollywood's highest accolade - an Oscar - has eluded Cruise, despite three acting nominations for his roles in "Magnolia", "Jerry Maguire" and "Born on the Fourth of July."

In May 2006, a USA/Today poll showed his public approval rating had slipped to 35 percent. Many of those polled cited his blunt criticism of actress Brooke Shield's treatment for depression and of psychiatry in general.

In 2005, he became the butt of jokes for a manic, couch-hopping TV appearance declaring his love for girlfriend Katie Holmes on the Oprah Winfrey show.

if ever there was a reason for consumers to "vote with their pocketbooks" its HIM! Boycott all his movies/ventures! Let him know in no uncertain terms that he is a HAS BEEN. and Free Katie while we're at it.

[strandinthewind]

I think this is rather silly of Paramount if that is their only reason. The bottom line is both of his last two movies, which were released around the time of the craziness, were blockbusters, to wit:

Mission Impossible III

TOTAL LIFETIME GROSSES
Domestic: $133,501,348 34.0%
+ Foreign: $259,660,663 66.0%

--------------------------------------

= Worldwide: $393,162,011

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=mi3.htm

and

War of the Worlds

TOTAL LIFETIME GROSSES
Domestic: $234,280,354 39.6%
+ Foreign: $357,459,025 60.4%

----------------------------------

= Worldwide: $591,739,379

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/...ftheworlds.htm

So, he still is a bankable star.

I think Cruise and Wagnor wanted too much of the gross, which they certainly could command after the long string of successes and then these last two.

Note -- I make no comment on Cruise's antics. I am looking at this from a business aspect only.

[amber]

That's a lotta cheddah to break from, yo. cr-zazy cheddah. (To paraphrase what Strand pointed out).

They must be banking that his future movies will tank, to make that kind of bad (seemingly) business move.

Even though he may be a cr-zazy tool, he usually picks good movies, interesting, lotta flash and action - in short, the kind of movies lots of people want to see. No, I'm not saying they're the best plots ever written or anything, but they are usually passable. Heck, I really liked that movie with Jamie Fox. Collateral?

Strand, even if they wanted too much of the gross, they'd still make a bigger profit on his movies than on most other movies, bet. Unless he's asking for 80% or something.

[vermicious knid]

Tom Cruise is repulsive to me. This is an old article from 1993. He was always a jerkwad; the public is catching up real late on that observation. The whole thing is an eye-opening read, but I want to highlight this one part.

Take the filming of the climactic courtroom scene in A Few Good Men, in which Jack Nicholson's character lunges at Cruise from the witness stand and has to be restrained by two marine guards. While being made up between takes, a real marine, who had been cast as one of the guards, joked to the makeup artist to take it easy--he didn't want to be "prettier" than Cruise. Overhearing the remark, Cruise barked angrily at the young marine, "What do you mean by that?"

"I don't want to be a pretty boy like you," the marine joked.

"Yeah, then you'd have to get a real job," Cruise told the $17,000-a-year marine.

[amber]

Originally Posted by vermicious knid

Tom Cruise is repulsive to me. This is an old article from 1993. He was always a jerkwad; the public is catching up real late on that observation. The whole thing is an eye-opening read, but I want to highlight this one part.

yeah, but how do we know that really happened? Most accounts of people from sets and stuff say he's pretty nice. Although, since he's super gay, he might have some sensitivity around being called a "pretty boy".

[JazmenFlowers]

I hate Tom Cruise.

that's all.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by vermicious knid

Tom Cruise is repulsive to me. This is an old article from 1993. He was always a jerkwad; the public is catching up real late on that observation. The whole thing is an eye-opening read, but I want to highlight this one part.

This article is eye opening. It illustrates a mind control tactic used by cults which is called loading the language. They create words that are easily remembered to apply sweeping generalizations and judgements. Like calling the press "suppressive persons". From rickross.com:

Loading the Language
The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis. In [Chinese Communist] thought reform, for instance, the phrase "bourgeois mentality" is used to encompass and critically dismiss ordinarily troublesome concerns like the quest for individual expression, the exploration of alternative ideas, and the search for perspective and balance in political judgments. And in addition to their function as interpretive shortcuts, these cliches become what Richard Weaver has called "ultimate terms" : either "god terms," representative of ultimate good; or "devil terms," representative of ultimate evil. In [Chinese Communist] thought reform, "progress," "progressive," "liberation," "proletarian standpoints" and "the dialectic of history" fall into the former category; "capitalist," "imperialist," "exploiting classes," and "bourgeois" (mentality, liberalism, morality, superstition, greed) of course fall into the latter. Totalist language then, is repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon, prematurely abstract, highly categorical, relentlessly judging, and to anyone but its most devoted advocate, deadly dull: in Lionel Trilling's phrase, "the language of nonthought."

http://www.rickross.com/reference/br...washing19.html