What took them so long ?

Paramount 'cuts ties with Cruise'

By entertainment editor Andrew Banks

August 23, 2006 02:26pm
Article from: Reuters


POOR Tom Cruise. First he's forced to take a pay cut, now the bosses at Paramount have decided to give him the flick.

Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures unit today said it was ending its 14-year relationship with Tom Cruise's film production company because of the actor's offscreen behaviour.

The company's chairman, Sumner Redstone, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that the behaviour of the star of the Mission: Impossible series and Top Gun was unacceptable to the company.

Cruise's contract with Paramount allowed the actor to receive $US10 million to support his production company, Cruise/Wagner Productions, in exchange for their choice of any of his films. The contract was set to expire next month.

Paramount reportedly funded Cruise's latest movie Mission: Impossible III, which was expected to make up to $US400 million in international box office takings, but due to Cruise's expected profit margin, the studios would simply break even, World Entertainment News Network reported.

Paula Wagner, the actor's longtime partner in his movie company, Cruise/Wagner Productions, struck back at Redstone, calling his comments about the three-time Oscar nominee "offensive" and "undignified."

"Whatever remarks Mr. Redstone would make about Tom Cruise personally or as an actor have no bearing on what this business issue is," she told Reuters. "There must be another agenda that the studio has in mind to take one of their greatest assets and malign him this way."

Five films starring Cruise and co-produced by his company, including the Mission: Impossible series, have generated theatrical revenues totaling over $US2 billion worldwide during the past decade. And Wagner said his films accounted for about 15 per cent of the studio's overall box office gross over that period.