Paramount dumps Tom Cruise: Finally!

[delalluvia]

I recently read that the main reason Paramount dumped him is essentially belt-tightening.  MI:III made a lot of money - especially for Tom Cruise.  He had a cut of the profits and DVD sales, so he cleared like 27 mil for himself.  Studios are not very happy about actors/directors getting a rather large chunk of the profits while not having to put any cash up front - basically not risking any of their own capital for a production.

So, back to Paramount cutting back on the goodies for TC.

And he walked.
 

[Giancarlo]

Well the studios are obviously putting far more money then individual actors towards it. However, I only think that is one reason. There are other reasons and that does include Cruise's outrageous attitude.

By the way, Mission Impossible III wasn't that big of a money maker..

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

Counting just the domestic market, it failed to make back its money. It only made $133 million domestically, compared to its $150 million dollar budget. Chances are it did make all its money back in DVD sales, but it was not a success when it cames to the theaters.

[Katie77]

I sure hope some of you realize that scientology is actually quite homophobic and advocates "changing" sexuality. Tom really got on my nerves and his stupidity at Oprah's show was the last straw. I'm glad he help bring scientology in the spotlight where it got exposed to be fraudulant. This was the best dumping in a long time... even better then my bestfriend dumping that abusive ex of hers.

Goodbye, Tom. I hope your career is now shot.

Yes I agree with you......I dont think he made many "normal" people run out and join up to scientology........maybe they will drop him like paramount did.......

[Giancarlo]

Why would normal people join scientology? There are plenty of rational explanations out there, and it isn't one of them.

[delalluvia]

There are other reasons and that does include Cruise's outrageous attitude.

I suppose, but I'm thinking in context.  Not to defend the nut or anything, but was Cruise's behavior really that 'outrageous'?

He jumped up on a couch, he blathered about psychiatry when he is no expert himself...what else?

Is this kind of attitude/behavior on the same par as getting stoned and waking up in a strange child's bed (Robert Downey, Jr.), getting busted picking up whores(Hugh Grant/Eddie Murphy), actually being a nut, wandering the countryside waiting to be picked up by aliens (Anne Heche), beating girlfriends/wives (Tom Sizemore/Jonathan Rhys-Myers, etc), lying to the grand jury (Lil Kim), shoplifting $1000s (Winona Ryder), running over a little kid in her car (Rebecca Gayhart)?

[vkm91941]

This from the Huffinton Post.  I have to say with everything going on in the world, It’s pretty pathetic that Tom-I can’t act –Cruise is still able to make headline news.



Who's Crazier: Viacom or Tom Cruise?

If there’s suddenly a litmus test for insanity to be administered by the owners of Hollywood movie studios, then start with the executive suites. That’s my reaction to the are-you-shitting-me pronouncement by Viacom Inc. chairman Sumner Redstone today that his Paramount Pictures is terminating its 14-year relationship with Tom “Crazy” Cruise’s production company because the actor’s controversial and erratic off-screen behavior hurt the theatrical grosses of "Mission Impossible 3. Of course, the studio's publicity department worked overtime all summer to dispel just that notion whenever entertainment business reporters questioned whether Cruise's loony tunes might affect his appeal. "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."

Granted Redstone was on a Rocky Mountain high, making his remarks in the thin air of Aspen Summit 2006 where his company was presenting before the digital world. And, granted, the octogenarian was seen wandering dazed and confused into the kitchen of The Grill in Beverly Hills not long ago. But, for the moment, I’ll assume he had all his mental faculties intact when he made his statement to the Journal. So, if I were a Viacom shareholder, I’d be asking Ol’ Sumner right now: Are you nuts? Fine, don’t do business anymore with the freakish dwarf actor who’ll never own an Oscar unless he buys one at auction and who gets an exorbitant amount for each movie. But why the fuck are you setting up his legal piranha (Bert Fields, who’s never lost a case) for what could well be the biggest lawsuit ever to hit Hollywood? (UPDATE: Bert's saying he won't sue.)

Already Cruise’s producing partner Paula Wagner called Redstone’s remarks "outrageous and disrespectful" and disputed his account of what happened during the negotiations to renew their studio pact. Not only did she claim Cruise / Wagner Productions terminated their talks with Paramount earlier in the week, but she said the time had come for Cruise and her to strike out on their own with an independent production deal financed to the tune of $100 million by two hedge funds. This might even be true. Meanwhile, everyone inside Paramount was diving for cover after Redstone’s remarks hit the wires, referring reporters to Viacom’s mealy mouthpiece Carl Folta. Studio chief Brad Grey, always the most politic mogul as well as the smallest, is now a eunuch, too, because his geriatric jerk of a boss cut off his balls to cut down Tom Terrible.

C’mon, fire the grinning actor idiot because he’s lost his box office appeal, or because his first dollar gross is so disgustingly huge that no studio has a prayer any more of making money on his motion pictures, or because of any other business reason. And fire him in the usual Hollywood way: with a bland-but-dignified press release about how much these 14 years have meant to both parties, ad nauseum. But, jeez, don’t fire him with this lame stuff that Sumner didn’t like the way Tiny Tom behaved. If that’s true, then no Hollywood studio can ever hire anyone. Drugs, sex, harrassment, mendacity, fraud: Paramount like most major studios has a rich history of horrible behavior by its work-for-hires. I could reel off for you 10 people now with rich studio deals, some at Paramount, who should be in jail or rehab or the Funny Farm but instead are well-paid miscreants.

Far be it from me to judge whether Cruise belongs in a straitjacket or not, or whether Scientology is a cult or a religion, or whether he’s gay or not, or whether MI3 would have done a lot more business in theaters if another big star had been the lead. But it’s absurd for Redstone to make an issue of Cruise’s conduct like he has. My god, Sumner himself was openly shtupping one of his producer girlfriends on the lot for years, and his own son is suing him. And Redstone looked the other way when Les Moonves carried on a long adulterous affair with employee Julie Chen and then married her after dumping his wife in the process. Which are all violations of so many corporate codes of conduct that I don’t think I can count that high. And let’s not forget how the old guy’s studio is still in business with Robert Evans who not only was a hopeless cocaine addict and regular client of Heidi Fleiss’s prostitution call girl ring for years but pled the Fifth Amendment in connection with a murder rap no less. And let's not forget that Redstone didn't blink when Brad Grey's name surfaced in that Anthony Pellicano (the thug P.I.) mess. So lemme get this straight: Cruise’s jumping around on Oprah’s couch is worse?

But the fact is that even Cruise’s recent moves, the ones done after he’d made Scientology the publicly avowed cause celebre of his life personally and professionally, and after he declared Katie Holmes the love of his life and knocked her up without benefit of marriage, are still top earners since 2000. Cruise did better for his studios with MI3, War of the Worlds, Collateral, The Last Samurai, Minority Report, Vanilla Sky and MI2 than almost any other star, including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Adam Sandler. My best guess is only Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp and Mel Gibson did better box office.

Let’s talk about Gibson. Last week, an erroneous report swept the Internet that Disney wasn’t going to distribute Gibson’s Mayan epic Apocalypto because of his drunken anti-Semitic tirade during his Malibu arrest. The corporation’s network ABC already had stopped Mel’s production company from producing a docudrama about The Holocaust. But the truth was that Disney movie toppers Dick Cook and Oren Aviv both called Gibson’s people to reassure that no way were they cutting Mel off at the knees when he was on his knees seeking the Jewish community’s absolution. For crissakes, it’s part of Hollywood lore that Walt Disney himself was an anti-Semite who reformed.

So go ahead, Tom, sue. (Or, better yet, get the litigious Scientology attack dogs to sue first). Get Sumner for all he’s worth. Which may be a lot in monetary terms but not even a penny in human ones.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/08/22/paramount-dumps-tom-cruis_n_27805.html

[vkm91941]

and this from Fox News

Q Scores: Tom Cruise's Popularity Has Dropped

Thursday , August 24, 2006

 

 
LOS ANGELES  — This hasn't been a few good days for Tom Cruise.

First, Paramount Pictures announced its 14-year relationship with Cruise's production company is history.

Then, there are the Q scores. Those are a way of rating celebrity popularity.

Click Here for the Tom Cruise Celebrity Center

An executive with Marketing Evaluations Incorporated, the company that calculates the scores, says Cruise's positive perception has fallen about 40 percent in the last year. And his negative perception has jumped nearly 100 percent.

But in the opinion of at least one producer, Peter Guber, Q scores or not, Tom Cruise will remain a big star, at least in the "near term."

Guber worked with Cruise on "Rain Man" and "A Few Good Men."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,210292,00.html

[Katie77]

I suppose, but I'm thinking in context.  Not to defend the nut or anything, but was Cruise's behavior really that 'outrageous'?

He jumped up on a couch, he blathered about psychiatry when he is no expert himself...what else?

Is this kind of attitude/behavior on the same par as getting stoned and waking up in a strange child's bed (Robert Downey, Jr.), getting busted picking up whores(Hugh Grant/Eddie Murphy), actually being a nut, wandering the countryside waiting to be picked up by aliens (Anne Heche), beating girlfriends/wives (Tom Sizemore/Jonathan Rhys-Myers, etc), lying to the grand jury (Lil Kim), shoplifting $1000s (Winona Ryder), running over a little kid in her car (Rebecca Gayhart)?

You are right, you know, and not wanting to sound two faced, i too, thought the same thing, when i added my bit of "nasty to tom" two cents worth a few days ago....

Maybe the fact is we just dont like the guy, maybe he is so presumptuous that everything he does is so correct, that we dont like that about him, and we were glad that in a moment of weakness (or however you like to describe it), he jumped on a couch and made a complete fool of himself, and so damaged his self rightious, always right, always in control image.

I must admit i have not seen many of his movies, because he is starring in a moive, doesnt necessarily want me to run out and see it....i did like him in "A Few Good Men", but was completely outshone by Keiffer Sutherland and Jack Nicholson.

As an Australian I was among the throng that were secretly amoured that he married one of ours (Nicole), and came out here regularly to visit, and adopted us as his second him, as we adopted him as our favourite "son in law"....but once they split, he wasnt our favourite anymore.

Yes, the fact is, I just dont like him.....but then again, I only know of him, what i read in newspapers and magazines, and i should be intelligent enough not to take too much notice of them....maybe we are all a little unfair....but im sure Tom probably doesnt care one iotta what we think anyway.

[Giancarlo]

I suppose, but I'm thinking in context.  Not to defend the nut or anything, but was Cruise's behavior really that 'outrageous'?

He jumped up on a couch, he blathered about psychiatry when he is no expert himself...what else?

Is this kind of attitude/behavior on the same par as getting stoned and waking up in a strange child's bed (Robert Downey, Jr.), getting busted picking up whores(Hugh Grant/Eddie Murphy), actually being a nut, wandering the countryside waiting to be picked up by aliens (Anne Heche), beating girlfriends/wives (Tom Sizemore/Jonathan Rhys-Myers, etc), lying to the grand jury (Lil Kim), shoplifting $1000s (Winona Ryder), running over a little kid in her car (Rebecca Gayhart)?

Don't think I'm excusing their behavior. Tom had a lot of the spot light on him too... and it puts out a negative image.

In fact I'm insulted you think that I'm excusing their behavior.

I simply do not like Tom Cruise. I think he's a douche.

[Sheyne]

Maybe the fact is we just dont like the guy, maybe he is so presumptuous that everything he does is so correct, that we dont like that about him, and we were glad that in a moment of weakness (or however you like to describe it), he jumped on a couch and made a complete fool of himself, and so damaged his self rightious, always right, always in control image.

Sorry, Katie, but I don't think the Oprah fiasco was any "moment of weakness" at all.  I don't think Tom Cruise has taken an unscripted, unplanned breath in his life.  I totally believe that embarrassing, couch-jumping, floor-pounding crap was a deliberate move by him to MAKE us think it was unplanned and unscripted.  That the "old, controlling" Tom Cruise has been a man reformed by true love. 

Madonna has been showing us for decades that the only way to stay on top is to constantly re-invent your image.  Tom Cruise only has one image - this groomed, scripted, spin-doctored control freak. And I do mean freak.  I believe his appearance on Oprah was a botched attempt at showing this "new carefree Tom".  But he pushed it too far.  He made a total dick of himself. And, sorry, didn't convince me for a second.  You can tell so much by a person's eyes. And while he grinned like a fool and punched the floor, his eyes - when they were actually able to be seen by the camera - were like stones.  And the cynic in me couldn't decide whether Oprah was in on it or not..

Giancarlo, it might interest you to know that the Church of Scientology is only one of MANY religious institutions that offer "sexual rehabilitation" programs for its members who find themselves attracted to the same sex, so that they may learn to live "straight and normally".  Oh I just LOVE that among the values churches inculcate in their members, tolerance and acceptance always get missed.   

And Del, Cruise's behaviour on Oprah may not have been as outrageous as any of those awful ones you mentioned, but I think what makes it more outrageous than Downey, Ryder, Sizemore or Heche is that NONE of them did what they did to be a media-whore and grab the attention Cruise was obviously after.  I've always been suspicious - why would some privacy-nut like Tom Cruise be SO keen to publicise this romance if it was genuine? He protected Nicole and his kids with a fervor that was bordering on scary. I've felt the whole TomKat thing was just cooked up to offset the gay rumours that have plagued him. And now they roped some young and overly-ambitious starlet in and worse, brought a child into it.  Now THAT'S outrageous.