For his part, Redstone said Grey and Freston have his full support. "They're doing a terrific job. Anyone who thinks I'm dissatisfied doesn't have it right. They're making low-cost pictures that will make us a lot of money, plus a film like 'World Trade Center,' which is fantastic and I would be shocked if it's not nominated for an Oscar."
Still, the studio has more work to do. It still seems unsure of how to exploit its most valuable resource -- MTV Films, which has underperformed for years, victim to a lack of autonomy and corporate vision. In a long-overdue reorganization, the studio recently named a bright young producer, Scott Aversano, as head of both MTV and Nickelodeon Movies. However, Aversano still reports to Berman, which means that instead of having its own production budget outlay, the studio's key youth-culture outpost will remain under the ultimate authority of middle-aged executives.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday August 25, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 48 words Type of Material: Correction
Paramount and Tom Cruise: An article in Thursday's Business section and some copies of the Patrick Goldstein column in today's Calendar section about Paramount Pictures Corp. and Tom Cruise severing ties misstated the age of Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount parent Viacom Inc. He is 83, not 84.
Contrast this situation to a more opportunistic studio like 20th Century Fox. Fox Searchlight teamed with MTV Films putting out "Napoleon Dynamite," a hit 2004 teen comedy. After seeing MTV's youth-culture marketing heft, Fox launched its own youth-culture division, Fox Atomic, which has far more autonomy than MTV and is already positioned to become a leading supplier of comedy and horror films, thanks to Fox's shrewd acquisition of MySpace and other Internet marketing launching pads.
That is the kind of bold, entrepreneurial thinking sorely missing at Paramount. As the Cruise imbroglio clearly shows, the studio remains firmly in the grasp of a man so out of touch with the modern world that when citing the support he'd had for his remarks, Redstone told reporters he'd had a congratulatory call from Vanity Fair celebrity chronicler Dominick Dunne, who told him he behaved like Samuel Goldwyn.
Being compared to Goldwyn has a nice ring to it, but the truth is that Redstone really has far more in common with Steinbrenner, who was so single-minded about success that he once fired a Yankees manager after the poor guy had won more than 100 games. That's why I suspect that no matter how many good pictures get made at Paramount, as long as Redstone is around, studio executives won't last any longer than Yankees managers during Steinbrenner's heyday. Both men live in a world where winning isn't everything -- it's the only thing.
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The Big Picture Extra is a special installment of The Big Picture, which runs Tuesdays in Calendar. Questions or criticism can be e-mailed to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.
