Paramount Ends Deal with Tom Cruise
It is amazing to see just how far Tom Cruise has fallen in recent times. In the past he had his divorce from Nicole Kidman in the papers, but that never seemed quite as intense and destructive to his career. Since the media tour for War of the Worlds everything has seemingly gone down hill. He went crazy talking about Scientology which led to a very public argument with Brook Shields and a now-famous soundclip of him calling Matt Lauer “glib.” Then, he seemingly lost his mind with the whole Katie Holmes relationship, subsequent pregnancy, and now the big wait to see if this baby exists.
I don’t really care all that much about this story. I think Scientology is kind of funny. I thought the “glib” comment was kind of funny. I couldn’t possibly care less about the Tom Cruise baby thing. The business side of things, on the other hand, is quite interesting to me.
Viacom chairman, Sumner Redstone, had this to say.
Basically, what Redstone seems to be saying is that Cruise has lost his heat as a box office draw, and it is largely his own fault for getting himself into precarious public situations. Now I know that War of the Worlds wasn’t the highest grossing movie ever, but the IMDB has it making just under $234 million at the box office on a budget of around $132 million. I believe that those budget numbers don’t include marketing and advertising totals, but even if you add $100 million to the budget for marketing and advertising, the movie would have had to have been profitable with international receipts as well as cable and DVD.
And did you see that movie? The effects were great. The story was, eh. I wonder what kind of profit they were expecting? Do you really think that a less volatile Tom Cruise makes that movie make that much more money?
Mission Impossible 3 did worse than War of the Worlds but it wasn’t a complete bomb. The estimated budget for that one was estimated at $150 million and to date it has grossed just under $134 million domestically. I know they were expecting big things from that movie, but it probably will at least break even, right?
While the studio expects serious profitability from its relationships with supposed superstars, there has to be something else going on. These last two movies wouldn’t seem to be enough to sever ties with a guy with a track record. That leads me to believe that there might be some other stuff going on. Do you think maybe Cruise is difficult to work with? Or is it really this quick and easy for the studio to decide that Cruise isn’t worth the trouble?
Regardless, I think I have the best idea for Cruise’s career. I hope that the slide continues for a couple of more years and then we get a blockbuster movie from Quentin Tarantino with Tom Cruise as a vehicle to revive his career.
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Everytime I write this guy off as completely sucking he comes out with a good flick like “Last Samurai” which is awesome. I will always watch Risky Business, Cocktail, All the Right Moves,Jerry McGuire, and Top Gun if they are on cable.
This is alot like professional athletes and musicians who are completely insane off the field/stage. Guys like Ray Lewis/Allen Iverson/TO, do appaling things off the field, but I enjoy watching them play their respective sports…Bono annoys the piss out of me, but I still dig some of the stuff U2 puts out.
Maybe movie stars should be viewed the same…take their politics and personality out of the equation and just enjoy what they do well.
heh. tommy c believes in aliens.
So Tom’s a nut, Mel’s a nut, and Arnold is in politics. This can’t bode well for Bruce Willis. Something very weird is bound to happen to him.
Don’t forget Stallone is making “Rocky 23: I Think I’m Getting too Old For This”
Something very weird is bound to happen to Bruce Willis?
Already happened.
Ashton Kutcher.
I’m not sure that’s sufficiently weird.