The juiciest quote about Tom (which I must have missed in the original Wall Street Journal article that broke this story):
 . . . Viacom Inc. chairman Sumner Redstone stunned Hollywood with his comment to the Wall Street Journal that he did not think "someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot."
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I like that line "effectuates creative suicide."Â
This whole story interests me for a number of reasons. First of all, I don't think it had much to do with Viacom and/or Sumner Redstone giving a damn one way or the other how many couches Tom Cruise jumps on, how many imaginary babies he has or how frequently he displays his creepy cult-induced psychobabble.
I think it had only to do with money, and to the extent that Tom's increasingly odd behavior affected the bottom line I guess it was somewhat related -- but mostly just about money.
Paramount tried to get concessions out of Cruise/Wagner Productions, which reportedly has one of the richest (THE richest?) deals around. Basically, according to the article, Cruise was making more money than Paramount and Paramount wasn't too psyched about that.
Reading between the lines, Paramount asked for concessions, Cruise said no and there you have it.
So . . . that's kind of interesting in it's own right but what I really found interesting is how quickly people jump on the story with glee over a major Hollywood superstar getting a little bit of a bitch slap.
I personally think Tom has totally lost it and that the Scientology thing is just downright scary. I don't claim to be an expert on Scientology but what I do know about it indicates to me that it is a completely nutty "religion" based on a science fiction book and that it bilks "converts" out of tons of cash in order to teach them the ways of Scientology and take them to the highest levels (in short, a cult).
Still, it's the reaction to the Paramount firing, not the firing itself, that I find most interesting.
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Also interesting to me is a look at the underlying economics of these types of production deals and how economic forces are changing the way studios look at these deals.
If you're interested in that kind of stuff, the article has some interesting tidbits about the effect of  DVD sales and how private investors are now interested in directly financing these celebrity driven production companies.
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Comments: 27
"The easiest way to get rich is to create a religion"
he sure accomplished that
It is a shame that his fans didn't leave him earlier.
I believe that it might have been Sumner Redstone that gave Tom the lucrative deal in the first place. Go figure.
I didn't go see MI:III because of Scientology - I just didn't want to see it.
But War of the Worlds did VERY well. I think if Tom were in a good movie people would still see it despite their reservations about him. In this case, Paramount is blaming Tom for a movie failure that I don't think was his fault...though yes, he's been acting "different" lately.
The studio had been planning to part ways gracefully when the contract expired in the next month or so and Redner caught many (all?) of his senior people off guard with his public trashing of Cruise.
I'd link the article but I was reading old school (i.e., an actual newspaper).
Funny how we never hear that he's donating his copious billions to any charities. Whatever he deigns to donate must all be going to Scientology.
I'm glad Redstone & Paramount stood him up. I can't wait to see this happen to alot of other big Hollywood stars. They make their big bucks on the backs of the people who do the real work in Hollywood.... like the showrunners, the line producers, the production managers, and all the creative & non creative crews.
DD, do you really think any of the money Viacom saves will go to the worker bees? It won't. The L.A. times article I referred to above says the Studios are scrambling to increase profits to acceptable Wall Street Levels. In the face of declining (maybe just stabilizing) DVD revenues, that means they are going to need CUT expenses, not just shift them from Tom Cruise to the Script Supervisor.
I dunno...Superman didn't blow the box office out of the water either, and it "should" have. (It didn't do badly, but it didn't do great.)
I didn't know whether MI:III was good or not, and I don't care about J.J. Abrams that much, honestly. I just was sick of the franchise, I was done with it in 1999, and that's why I didn't make an effort to go see it.
The movie I wanted to see this year was Pirates of the Caribbean. Not just for Johnny Depp, but because it's got PIRATES and it's fun.
I think tastes in films change and personally I'm sick of the whole car chase blowing things up thing that MI:III was about. So my choice in ignoring the film had a lot to do with that, and nothing to do with Cruise.
I personally still enjoy Cruise as an actor and I could care less about his religious beliefs.
So I just don't think it's fair to blame Cruise entirely for MI:III's failure. Movie tastes CHANGE and people are renting more too.
For alot of things, public opinion polls aren't that meaningful but where your whole bankability factor is based on public appeal, a public opinion poll seems pretty meaningful to me.
And it's not just the Scientology thing in and of itself, I don't think, that people are upset about. It's the bizarre way in which it seems to be impacting his behavior on so many fronts that has people thinking he's Michael Jackson creepy.
In any event, I think it was totally $$ related and Sumner Redstone just used the Creepy factor to get headlines and look like a hard ass, in addition to maliciously harming the star he was cutting loose to attempt to decrease Cruise's value to competitors. It's an ugly business.
Well, I would agree with you there, and it seems to me the media has had a feeding frenzy on Tom. They just want to take whatever offbeat thing he does and just hammer it into the ground. He's everyone's favorite kook right now.
No way Jake. It's the Corporation's bottom line, and it's stockholders who Mgmnt hopes will benefit, as will the upper echelon in their annual bonuses. Movies, especially the big budget bonanzas are a dying breed these days, at least in this country. The big stars demand so much $$$ up front - and, as in Cruise's case, in the back as well - that these big budget films can barely make a profit. Add in the fact that fewer people care to spend $10-12 per ticket, $5 per popcorn, $4 per coke, $10 for parking... all for the added bonus of sitting in a broken chair listening to people text message while their feet are stuck to the floor with dried coke... and what do you get? Lower box office receipts.
When I typed
> "I'm glad Redstone & Paramount stood him up. I can't wait to see this happen to alot of other big Hollywood stars. They make their big bucks on the backs of the people who do the real work in Hollywood.... like the showrunners, the line producers, the production managers, and all the creative & non creative crews."
I meant that I saw this day coming from a long way back, the big stars have been taking too much $$$ for too long now, and the rest of the poor shelps who do the actual hard work get no respect and none of the financial rewards. Something's got to give.
It won't happen over night and I doubt the system as we know it now will completely disappear but the combination of (a) really inexpensive, very high quality video creation tools, and (b) ever more ubiquitous broadband connections in the home are going to really seriously threaten the status quo just as cheap home audio studios and MySpace and iTunes have shaken up the entire music industry.
I'm reading (actually, listening to) the book "The Long Tail" right now which talks alot about this. It's mostly concepts I'm pretty familiar with anyway, and you probably are too, but the book is a very entertaining "read" with lots of interesting discussion and light weight (but good) economic analysis.
I'm going to write up a little review on the book one of these days. I recommend it.
Runaway production has been a big problem in Hollywood for something like 12 years, think of runaway production as you would outsourcing. All the movie and lots of tv shows all moved north to Canada where they didn't have to pay the crew union wages. All done for the bottom line. Just like Redstone's move w Cruise. And think of all the "reality" shows these days that ALL have bigtime product placement inshow.
The changes are all around us, we just might not have the perspective to notice them.
This could be good OR bad for the viewing public. Less people who are willing to take bigger risks in this business could likely lead to fewer films of quality OR perhaps they could lead to more films of lower quality. All I know is.. we're in for a ride.
Off Topic: Jimmy Kimmel rocks and is by far the best of the Kimmel/Letterman/Leno bunch. Craig Ferguson (on CBS after Letterman) also rocks.