One of the more stable recent marriages in Hollywood history - Paramount Pictures and Cruise/Wagner's production deal, has been called off after fourteen lucrative years reports Reuters.
The move has been coming for a while. The new regime at Paramount has been quite public about their strict re-negotiations with Cruise/Wagner, and for many weeks its been widely known the pair had reached an impasse. Today it became official. C/W's last film with Paramount, "Mission: Impossible III", has earned $393 million worldwide so far - though that figure is considered a disappointment.
What has proven surprising, and quite entertaining actually, is Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone telling The Wall Street Journal that "As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew the deal. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount".
The mildly catty remark has already incited press release reprisals from CAA & C/W, with Cruise's long-time producing partner Paula Wagner calling the remarks "offensive" and "undignified". She added that "Whatever remarks Mr. Redstone would make about Tom Cruise personally or as an actor have no bearing on what this business issue is. There must be another agenda that the studio has in mind to take one of their greatest assets and malign him this way".
Indeed whilst this is a time when all the studios are cutting back on both long and short-term production deals all over, Paramount is one of the few that's moving forward with their expenditure and deals from their acquisition of Dreamworks to more recent deals with Brad Pitt's Plan B company and a rather large deal with MI3 helmer J.J. Abrams.
Cruise/Wagner is now establishing a new venture financed through a private revolving equity fund of $100 million, and negotiations are commencing at another studio for his next project.
