Paramount dumps cult member Cruise

From the Associated Press...

[Sumner] Redstone [chairman of Viacom, Inc., which owns Paramount Pictures] said Tuesday that Paramount would sever its long and profitable relationship with Cruise/Wagner Productions, Cruise's company with producing partner Paula Wagner. Redstone told the Wall Street Journal that Cruise's "recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."...

In the past year or so, Cruise couch-hopped on Oprah Winfrey's talk show while proclaiming his love for Katie Holmes, criticized the use of antidepressants and claimed that postpartum depression doesn't exist. He also got into an angry exchange with Matt Lauer on the "Today" show while defending his opinions....

With "War of the Worlds" and "Mission: Impossible 3," Cruise helped earn nearly $1 billion for Paramount this year alone, Wagner said. Cruise/Wagner Productions brought "M:I3" director J.J. Abrams to the studio, she said, which recently inked a five-year arrangement with Abrams.

Ironically, last night there was an episode of According to Jim where Jim helped his brother-in-law meet a woman who turned out to be a bit crazy. Jim kept assuring his BIL that it was okay as long as she was good looking enough to be "acceptably crazy". Apparently Paramount has determined that Tom Cruise is loony enough that $1 billion in profits still doesn't make him "acceptably crazy".

I figured Cruise was batty a long time ago, but I can see how some studio pencil-pushers would take a while to see past the dollar signs to realize just how certifiable the guy is.

Posted by Danny Carlton at August 23, 2006 12:13 PM