Viacom to Break Ties With Cruise
Paramount Pictures is severing its lucrative 14-year relationship with Tom Cruise, whose recent off-screen behavior proved to be too much for Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone, who disclosed the superstar's termination Tuesday.
"His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount," Redstone said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Paramount is Viacom's moviemaking arm.
The unceremonious dismissal of one of Hollywood's highest-paid stars stunned the entertainment industry, with agents and movie executives privately questioning whether talent relations had sunk to a new low.
Redstone's remarks are a sign of the mounting tensions between the major studios and their high-priced talent as movie costs soar.
Neither Cruise nor his lawyer, Bertram Fields, could be reached for comment. Cruise's producing partner, Paula Wagner, hit back at Redstone .
"It is graceless. It is undignified. It's not businesslike," she said. "I ask, what is his real agenda? What is he trying to do? Is this how you treat artists? If I were another actor or filmmaker, would I work at a studio that takes one of their greatest assets and publicly does this?"
Wagner put a different spin on the split, saying she and Cruise decided to go in a different direction after negotiations with Paramount on a new contract collapsed a week and a half ago. Since then, she said, she and Cruise have secured outside funding to establish an independent production company. She declined to provide specifics.
Wagner noted that Cruise had made more money for Paramount than any other actor has made for any other studio in history. His last seven films have grossed more than $100 million each in the U.S., she said.
Cracks in the Cruise-Paramount relationship began to surface last month when the studio balked at renewing its commitment to pay the star and Wagner as much as $10 million a year to cover overhead, project-development and other costs at their movie production company.
That deal, which expired July 31, provided at least four times what stars such as Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Tom Hanks secure from their studios.
After failing to renew the contract, Paramount had extended the production deal for a month to continue negotiations, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Paramount offered the pair $2 million a year plus a $500,000 discretionary fund for each of two years, said the sources, who didn't want to be named because of the sensitivity of the talks.
