Paramount cuts ties with Tom Cruise
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: 7:12 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 (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=VIAB) (Charts (http://money.cnn.com/quote/chart/chart.html?symb=VIAB)), said 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, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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

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



btw, this guy wears a hairpiece!!

Pic please?

Now maybe his wife will get a CLUE and fire him also..........

And take that poor kid with her.

tom

Tom Cruise INS'T married.

Are you sure he INS'T?

i cant watch a Cruise movie without thinking how screwy he is!
then again, with his money, he dont need to work!

Aint religious extremism great? :rolleyes:

do'in a little happy jig here.

One more piece of my master plan comes to fruition.:p

Maybe this means that he'll finally have to move that big, black, oversized motorhome of his off the lot!

i cant watch a Cruise movie without thinking how screwy he is!
then again, with his money, he dont need to work!I can't watch a Cruise movie period! And not because of his "erratic behavior"; mostly because he can't act.

Jeesh! Between you guys and Sumner Redstone I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Tom Cruise. I didn't think that was possible.

Like Gene Roddenberry and Robert Evans before him, Tom Cruise has made an insane amount of money for Paramount Pictures over the years. And in spite of his eratic behavior (Star Makes Fool Of Self -- Alert Media!) Cruise has starred in a couple of pictures I happen to like.

God knows T.C. is as out of touch with reality as any actor since (fill in the blank), but if there's anything more annoying than a clueless movie star it's a hypocritical studio and a mean-spirited audience.

From other reports I read, it seems likely that it wasn't Cruise's behavior that Paramount had a problem with, but their business relation. Although MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III made a lot of money, the deal was set up so that Paramount got very little of it.

When someone says they can't watch an actor's movie because of his behaviour/public statements/politics, my reaction is, that is a failing on your part. To use that as a basis for what movie to watch will just deprive you of seeing a lot of great movies.

In fact, I challenge you to name one worthwhile movie made entirely by normal, well-adjusted people.

I mentioned this on another thread, but if you think Cruise is crazy, check out Werner Herzog's documentary on his relationship with Klaus Kinski, MY BEST FIEND. Now Kinski was insane. As in should have been institutionalized. On more than one occaision, he almost killed a fellow actor. Herzog once even threatened Kinski with death to keep him from walking off a movie.

But if someone were to refuse to watch AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD because of the behavior of the filmmakers, they should have their moviewatching license revoked.

And Cruise can't act? Sure, he's had a tendency to rely on his looks, and has made some bad choices in roles, but have you seen BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY? Or MAGNOLIA? Or RAIN MAN? In fact, more than one professional actor has pointed out that although Hoffman may have had the flashier role, it was Cruise that carried that movie.

And Cruise can't act? Sure, he's had a tendency to rely on his looks, and has made some bad choices in roles, but have you seen BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY? Or RAIN MAN? In fact, more than one professional actor has pointed out that although Hoffman may have had the flashier role, it was Cruise that carried that movie.


Hmmm. Interesting examples, and for me, both an example of Cruise's limitations as an actor. I did not for a minute believe him as Ron Kovic, but thought he was quite effective as Charlie Babbitt - which confirms my belief that as long as Cruise is playing a driven, focused, self-disciplined and self-centered character - a character very close to who he truly is (Rain Man, Jerry Maguire, Collateral) - he can be quite compelling and convincing. Conversely, when Cruise is cast in a role that is outside of who he is (Born on The Fourth of July, Vanilla Sky, The Last Samurai) - he is completely out of his league as an actor and his performance is painful to watch. I don't begrudge Cruise his success. I think he's worked very hard for it. But he is a very limited actor.

Whatever happened to the days when stars would play wildly different characters from movie to movie? Actors like Humphry Bogart, John Wayne, or Cary Grant.

Sarah Vowell put it best: "When a director wants `alone in a crowd' he calls Tom Cruise.

Hmmm. Interesting examples, and for me, both an example of Cruise's limitations as an actor. I did not for a minute believe him as Ron Kovic, but thought he was quite effective as Charlie Babbitt - which confirms my belief that as long as Cruise is playing a driven, focused, self-disciplined and self-centered character - a character very close to who he truly is (Rain Man, Jerry Maguire, Collateral) - he can be quite compelling and convincing. Conversely, when Cruise is cast in a role that is outside of who he is (Born on The Fourth of July, Vanilla Sky, The Last Samurai) - he is completely out of his league as an actor and his performance is painful to watch. I don't begrudge Cruise his success. I think he's worked very hard for it. But he is a very limited actor.

I always thought his best performance was in The Color of Money.

Whatever happened to the days when stars would play wildly different characters from movie to movie? Actors like Humphry Bogart, John Wayne, or Cary Grant.

IMHO, bad examples. Although GREAT actors, they essentially played themselves in each movie. (I also wouldn't think that the characters that John Wayne played exactly spanned the gamut of anything.)

They never really disappeared into a role. Tom Cruise is pretty much the same in that latter regard. Not as great an actor as the others by any means, I have, nevertheless, enjoyed his work, especially in MI:III.

I think BEBruns was being facetious.

Tom Cruise is first and foremost a movie star, and audiences don't watch movie stars because of their acting range. They watch them because they're watchable.

Ha! :freak: Got me! Good one! :thumbsup:

acting as a profession is vastly overrated!
too much is made of actors when writing directing and editing make a film more than an actor.

Tom Cruise's relationship with Paramount ended after 14 years. Rick Berman's relationship with Paramount ended after 18 years. So Paramount's threshold of pain is bigger than a decade but less than 20. Hmmmm..... :p

There's something very odd about the way Viacom chief (and Paramount owner) Sumner Redstone has trashed Cruise in the media. Clearly Redstone has an agenda, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

For the record, Tom Cruise has generated more income for Paramount Pictures than any actor has ever generated for any studio in history. Playing Hardball Negotiator with an aging movie star is one thing, but to publicly slime a guy who’s lined your pockets with gold is the height of hypocrisy (and don't give me that crap about "erratic behavior;" if Redstone thought it would make money he'd give Osama Bin Laden a deal).

Whatever Redstone's motives, the message to the creative community seems pretty clear: If you dig being bitch-slapped in public, Paramount's the studio for you!

acting as a profession is vastly overrated!
too much is made of actors when writing directing and editing make a film more than an actor.
This may be true if you're looking at whether it is a good movie or not, but when it comes to selling a movie, the actors are very important. Your average moviegoer probably couldn't name more than a handful of directors (Spielberg, Tarantino, Ron Howard). And they probably couldn't name a single non-directing writer. To the average person, it is the stars that give them an idea of what the movie will be like. It is the stars that give them a hook into even being aware of a movie. Look at SERENITY. It received almost universally good reviews. Word of mouth was excellent. The box office plunged after the first week. To most people the movie doesn't even exist. They've seen the commercials. Friends may have told them about it, but they had no way of filing it away in their memory.

The reason some actors make $20 million plus per movie is because the studios and the producers know that their presence alone will guarantee them $50-100 million at the box office.


And yes, I was being sarcastic in my remarks about older movie stars. Most actors (stars especially) are very limited in the kinds of roles they can play. What's important is whether or not they are right for the particular part they are playing.

SERENITY failed because it's a bad concept.

And yes, I was being sarcastic in my remarks about older movie stars. Most actors (stars especially) are very limited in the kinds of roles they can play. What's important is whether or not they are right for the particular part they are playing.

Yes, but ... both Grant and Bogart were far more versatile than Cruise. Grant especially could put forth a wide range of emotions and could also do both comedy and drama with equal authority. Bogart's physicality limited him somewhat in the roles he played but he could still reach depths of character that Cruise can only dream about. On the other hand, Wayne wasn't particularly convincing as Genghis Kahn.:p

. . . For the record, Tom Cruise has generated more income for Paramount Pictures than any actor has ever generated for any studio in history.

Not to in any way detract from your point, Carson, I would like to point out that your statement is true only relative to the current inflated economy.

If you account for inflation, I don't think that is a true statement and I'm personally inclined to regard actual ticket sales as the best guage. Whether admission cost a nickel in 1918, $4.00 in 1977, or $12.00 in 2006, I think the number of tickets sold gives a better idea of the impact a particular star has on his world and his time.

And, on that basis, has anyone, anywhere, ever beaten Charlie Chaplin's ticket sales? :confused:

Yes, but ... both Grant and Bogart were far more versatile than Cruise. Grant especially could put forth a wide range of emotions and could also do both comedy and drama with equal authority. Bogart's physicality limited him somewhat in the roles he played but he could still reach depths of character that Cruise can only dream about. On the other hand, Wayne wasn't particularly convincing as Genghis Kahn.:p

Can folks here, of whom there seem to be an inordinately large number of knowledgable individuals in the field of movie facts and trivia, name some actors who are/were especially good at disappearing into different roles to the extent that it's sometimes hard to tell who the actor is.

The one modern actor I can think of off hand would be Gary Oldman.

The only other one I can think of would be Lon Chaney, Sr.

What are some others? :confused:

Can folks here, of whom there seem to be an inordinately number of knowledgable individuals in the field of movie facts and trivia, name some actors who are/were especially good at disappearing into different roles to the extent that it's sometimes hard to tell who the actor is.

The one modern actor I can think of off hand would be Gary Oldman.

The only other one I can think of would be Lon Chaney, Sr.

What are some others? :confused:

A lot of people don't like him for his offscreen antics, but I'd put Tim Robbins in that category, compare "Nuke" Laroosh with Bob Roberts, or the guy from Mystic River. And don't forget Gene Hackman, who's been making it look easy for over forty years.

And though he's now a cult and indie movie icon, M Emmett Walsh has played an amazing variety of roles for decades before breaking out in Blood Simple.

And to be fair to the ladies, Francis McDormand never looks or acts the same in anything she's in.

Sorta' depends on what you mean by "disappear". I would argue that Jack Nicholson - personality that he is - didn't hit one false note in any role he played between 1969 (Easy Rider) and 1975 (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest). After that he started to coast. But Bobby Dupea, Jonathan Fuerst, Billy "Bad Ass" Buddusky, Jake Gittes, and Randle Patrick McMurphy were utterly distinctive, living, breathing characters - even though they all looked and talked like Jack Nicholson. Hackman, Hoffman, Duvall, De Niro, Donald Sutherland - all of those guys did a quality of work in the 70s that is hard to top. Sean Penn comes pretty close. Oldman is damned good. Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing.

Can folks here, of whom there seem to be an inordinately number of knowledgable individuals in the field of movie facts and trivia, name some actors who are/were especially good at disappearing into different roles to the extent that it's sometimes hard to tell who the actor is.

The one modern actor I can think of off hand would be Gary Oldman.

The only other one I can think of would be Lon Chaney, Sr.

What are some others? :confused:
Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers were both famous for disappearing into their roles. Sellers even joked about having his personality surgically removed. When I loaned a friend of mine my copy of THE LADYKILLERS, she wasn't even sure which role Guiness was playing.

During Hollywood's Golden Age, Paul Muni (the original SCARFACE) was famous for disappearing into his roles. Of course, today he's nowhere as famous as the more iconic actors of the time.

I'd like to add the following to Zorro's list:

Cate Blanchett (one of the best female character actors)
Felicity Huffman
William H. Macy
Tommy Lee Jones (who seems to adapt his narrow on-screen character into a wide range of roles so that they really look different)

Jim

Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman

Just thought of another: Hank Azaria. He is practically unrecognizable from role to role.

And with Alec Guiness, check out KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS sometime. He plays eight different characters. Everything from a dashing young playboy to a doddering old priest.

GARY OLDMAN!!!!!!!!!!
now there's an actor!
he's the best!!

Benicio Del Toro. Even when I know what part he's playing I don't recognize him.

Oh, and don't forget John Saxon...













...yeah, I'm kidding. :wave:

SERENITY failed because it's a bad concept.Wrong. Serenity failed because it was poorly marketed, which is one of the major reasons the television series it was based upon was cancelled after only 11 episodes aired.

. . . that Jack Nicholson - personality that he is - didn't hit one false note in any role he played between 1969 (Easy Rider) and 1975 (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest) . . . Bobby Dupea, Jonathan Fuerst, Billy "Bad Ass" Buddusky, Jake Gittes, and Randle Patrick McMurphy were utterly distinctive, living, breathing characters - even though they all looked and talked like Jack Nicholson. Hackman, Hoffman, Duvall, De Niro, Donald Sutherland . . . Sean Penn comes pretty close. Oldman is damned good. Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing.

Benicio Del Toro . . . Hank Azaria . . . Alec Guiness . . . Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman . . . Cate Blanchett (one of the best female character actors) Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Tommy Lee Jones . . . Peter Sellers, Paul Muni . . .

EXCELLENT lists! :thumbsup: A lot of those fellows and gals are so good that in many of their roles that it's hard to recall the actor though the characters are certainly memorable.

Cate Blanchett is really amazing. She made me love her as Elizabeth and hate her as Hepburn. (I've never really cared for Hepburn nor Spencer Tracy.)

Hoffman really is amazing. I saw him in MI:3 and Capote and still can't make myself think (without conscious effort) that they're the same man.

One reviewer wrote that Hepburn's acting ran the gamut from A to B. ;)

Whether or not you agree, that statement can be applied to sooo many Hollywood stars.

There's going to be a certain poetic justice if the rumors about Cruise being fired by/leaving Paramount over South Park are true.

Wrong. Serenity failed because it was poorly marketed, which is one of the major reasons the television series it was based upon was cancelled after only 11 episodes aired.

Ehhh...he's a troll. It's not worth the effort to respond.

Box office moneymakers

Clarke Gable?
Abbott & Costello?
Randolph Scott?
George C. Scott?

The really good actors
who we can't remember
due to the transparent nature
of each part???

Nicolas Cage?
Gary Oldham for SURE
Rowan Atkinson
Hugh Laurie

I haven't seen him in all that many movies, but John Turturro seems a completely different person in each role I've seen him play.

Qapla'

SSB

Getting back to the original subject of this thread, IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-08-24/#film1) is reporting the latest fallout of the Cruise "firing:"

Top Talent Agency May Boycott Paramount


The head of Hollywood's leading talent agency has condemned Viacom chief Sumner Redstone's castigating comments about Tom Cruise and has suggested that the agency may now refuse to do business with Viacom's Paramount studios. In an interview with today's (Thursday) Wall Street Journal, Richard Lovett, president of Creative Artists Agency, which represents Cruise, said, "Paramount has no credibility right now. ... It is not clear who is running the studio and who is making the decisions." Cruise's partner, Paula Wagner, is a onetime CAA agent and is married to Cruise's current representative at CAA, Rick Nicita. On Tuesday Redstone told the newspaper that Paramount was cutting its ties with Cruise's production company because the actor's behavior over the past year was "not acceptable to Paramount." As the newspaper pointed out, under ordinary circumstances such an announcement would have come from Paramount Chairman Brad Grey or Viacom CEO Tom Freston. "For such talk to come out of the blue, from Mr. Redstone himself, and then be followed by two days of silence from both Mr. Grey and Mr. Freston, stunned Hollywood's power elite," the Journal observed. For his part, Redstone told today's Los Angeles Times: "Tom Freston should have made the announcement, but it was apparent to me he didn't want to, and I understand why: Because he's in the talent business." Redstone, in his interview with the Wall Street Journal, also said that he had received "congratulatory calls" from DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen -- who reportedly engineered the sale of the studio to Paramount -- and Imagine Entertainment founder Brian Grazer. "It is about time that the industry started dealing with these stars in a different manner and let them know that they are not going to get big money and act in a way that is inappropriate and embarrasses the studios," Redstone said.


Wall Street Sides With Redstone

Wall Street appeared to judge the Tom Cruise/Paramount schism less harshly than Hollywood. Entertainment analyst Hal Vogel of Vogel Capital Management told today's (Thursday) Hollywood Reporter that the movie industry may be coming around to the conclusion that "you can't have [film stars] walking away with the lion's share of the profit and the studio that risks the capital ... [getting] less payment than the guy who didn't risk any capital." (Viacom shares rose slightly on Wednesday but had given up most of their gains by midday today.) Other analysts expected that the Cruise/Wagner company would have little difficulty raising funds to finance its own movies. In an interview with the Associated Press, Simon Franks, chairman of Redbus Group, a private equity group, indicated he would have no reluctance to invest in a Cruise/Wagner production: "Most actors are overvalued, but Cruise is one of the few who is undervalued," Franks said. "He's never had a failure, so you'll get a high return on average investment."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What really gets me is the comments about Cruise getting a lion's share of the profits without risking any capital. I hope this isn't going to turn into a political discussion (I see it as a philosophical problem) but I think this is typical of the attitude of many people in business and politics. The idea that people who make money by having money should get special consideration over people who make money by actually producing a product or providing a service.

It may seem strange to cast Cruise as a victim in an Art vs Commerce conflict, but that's what it's starting to look like.

Just had to add one more OT thought:Can folks here. . . name some actors who are/were especially good at disappearing into different roles to the extent that it's sometimes hard to tell who the actor is. :confused:What's especially difficult to pull off is playing a real person who was himself a chameleon. Check out Geoffrey Rush’s tour de force as Peter Sellers in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers — in a word, amazing! It's also interesting when an actor who's known for playing basically the same character in every movie is successfully cast against type. After The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, every picture with Richard Dreyfuss had him playing variations on the Kravitz character — the Nervous Wisecracking Little Jew. (It's okay, I'm Jewish so I can say that). When he played gangster Meyer Lansky in an HBO biopic, at first I didn’t recognize him.

And Cary Grant — sure, he always played Cary Grant. But did anyone complain?

After The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, every picture with Richard Dreyfuss had him playing variations on the Kravitz character — the Nervous Wisecracking Little Jew. (It's okay, I'm Jewish so I can say that). When he played gangster Meyer Lansky in an HBO biopic, at first I didn’t recognize him.

Check out Dustin Hoffman in "Straight Time" (if it ever comes out on DVD). I knew how great Hoffman was but when I read he was going to play a hardened, violent ex-con in this 1978 movie I didn't believe he could pull it off based on pure physicality alone. He does.

I mentioned this on another forum, but I think it's important to point out that the issue here isn't really Tom Cruise. The issue is the massive sea change the entire entertainment industry is currently experiencing -- and make no mistake, these changes will effect the movies themselves -- not just how they're presented, but how they're made.

The same technological and demographical shifts that have turned the music industry upside down over the last few years are starting to effect the film biz, and Cruise is merely the latest and most visible example.

I know a lot of people could care less about this type of backstage Hollywood skullduggery. Many of my friends, even some working in the industry, have given up on contemporary cinema alltogether. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I still love the movies and I can't help but be interested in the forces (finacial, political and creative) that determine how they're made.

They said sound would kill the movies.

They said television would kill the movies.

They said the VCR and the DVD would kill the movies.

The movies are still alive and kicking.

Vive le cinéma!

Wrong. Serenity failed because it was poorly marketed, which is one of the major reasons the television series it was based upon was cancelled after only 11 episodes aired.

no, you are wrong! Serenity was a bad show with bad characters and someone had the bad idea to make a bad movie!

I mentioned this on another forum, but I think it's important to point out that the issue here isn't really Tom Cruise. The issue is the massive sea change the entire entertainment industry is currently experiencing -- and make no mistake, these changes will effect the movies themselves -- not just how they're presented, but how they're made.

The same technological and demographical shifts that have turned the music industry upside down over the last few years are starting to effect the film biz, and Cruise is merely the latest and most visible example.

I know a lot of people could care less about this type of backstage Hollywood skullduggery. Many of my friends, even some working in the industry, have given up on contemporary cinema alltogether. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I still love the movies and I can't help but be interested in the forces (finacial, political and creative) that determine how they're made.


the issue is Tom Cruise and how actors who believe they can say or do whatever they want can be held accountable for their failing at the box office. it's a "what have you done for me lately" mentality in hollywood!