Friday, November 03, 2006

Tom Cruise Jumps off Couch, Lands at United Artists


Tom Cruise will be bringing his special brand of crazy to United Artists, parent company MGM announced Thursday. Cruise and his longtime producing partner, Paula Wagner, have taken a "substantial minority stake" in the company, where Wagner will serve as CEO and Cruise will have the authority to greenlight and star in the big-screen adaptations of every L. Ron Hubbard novel John Travolta missed.

"You've got the studios accusing talent of driving up the cost of doing business and the talent accusing the studios of being political bureaucracies," says MGM chairman and CEO Harry Sloan. "We think if we can create a talent-friendly studio, owned by artists, then we can come up with a new financial model."

Cruise was booted in August from his former home at Paramount, after Viacom crypt-keeper Sumner Redstone insisted Cruise's off-screen antics were hurting the bottom line on his movies. His arrival at UA marks a return to the artist-run business model on which the studio was originally founded.

Anonymous said...

I think this deal is intriguing. I'm still a fan of Tom Cruise; and he is probably is the most successful of the actors-turned-producers. He might draw some A-listers alienated by the likes of Redstone.

It's funny that studios suddenly think that they could do without A-listers. Betting a studios' future on less-talented actors is penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Anonymous said...

I see movies all the time without A-listers. It's about the movie to me. Is it a good script or not. I'm not a teenager and swayed by one liners and potty jokes. I like good stories. I don't care if they are A-listers as long as they are good actors. There are plenty of A-listers who really aren't all that good at acting, but they are o.k. and look good on film.

So I hope studioes start to care more about scripts and good actors rather than just getting an A-lister signed on to their projects.

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