The Hindu Business Line : Paramount bosses unamused

Paramount Studio bosses were not amused when their high-profile star Tom Cruise made news jumping about on the couch on a TV talk show and expressing belief in the controversial Scientology theories. "His conduct was not acceptable," they huffed. "It was embarrassing to the studio and cost us a lot of money." Cruise's actions cost the studio nearly $150 million with the falling ticket sales for his Mission Impossible III. So Paramount sacked Cruise who had a 14-year contract to make movies for the studio.

The studio's action came at a time when show business was grumbling about the high production cost of movies and studio bosses asked actors, directors and script writers to charge less. Actor Russell Crowe recently walked out of the sets of a Warner Bros movie saying, "I do a lot of charity work, but I will not do charity for the big studios."

Cruise, however, had a fresh challenge. Along with his producing partner, Paula Wagner, he took control of United Artists (UA), a legendary filmmaking unit founded by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks (Sr). They became minority shareholders whereby Wagner would be CEO of UA and Cruise, an executive and producer. This is seen as a boost for UA whose image in the recent past has been diminished by the absence of top stars. Officials at MGM, which owned UA, said they were keen to encourage dialogue between corporate heads and creative elements.

According to the details under negotiation, Cruise and Wagner will make four movies a year for UA which will be distributed by MGM. The studio agreed to finance UA's first few movies, but the proposed budgets ($40-50 million per movie) are not that high and also bear the overhead costs. If these moves clicked, MGM hoped to induce hedge funds, investment banks or wealthy individuals to invest in the UA movies in partnership with Cruise and Wagner.

V. Gangadhar