Pribek

There are a couple of things I find interesting about this Tom Cruise- Paramount Pictures mess.

The last movie Cruise did, “Mission: Impossible 3″, made four hundred million dollars worldwide.

Viacom owns Paramount. Sumner Redstone runs Viacom. I saw a TV profile on Mr. Redstone a while ago. He strikes me as a no-bullshit type guy. This is what Redstone told the Wall Street Journal, “He’s a terrific actor. But we don’t think someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot.”

So, he likes Cruise’s acting but not his “off screen behavior”. The conventional wisdom is, that this is code for Cruise’s outspoken belief in Scientology. Implying that all of his other wing nut behavior could be tolerated.

Seems like pretty strong comments to the press regarding a parting of ways. It also seems odd that $400 million is not enough.

Here’s the thing, Mr. Redstone is not really talking to the general public. He is addressing stockholders. He had projected that the movie would make far more. The stockholders see it as losing money. Redstone is not going to accept any blame. He is going to say that this wack-job committed career suicide by spouting a bunch of L. Ron Hubbard jive.

So, this is not about a guy being persecuted for his personal beliefs. This is not about being persecuted for leaping gingerly on Oprah’s couch. It’s about losing money. The movie business is about quarterly reports not storylines.

The “off screen behavior” of a particular actor has nothing at all to do with making movies or creativity. It is just that his stature has to be artificially enhanced to justify spending and making this kind of money. The real sad part isn’t that it costs $100 million plus to make this crap, it’s that this crap has to make $500 million plus in order to make more of the same. I would rather take my chances on 10 movies that cost $10 million apiece.

At the end of the day, Tom Cruise says he has $100 million secured for his production company. Wouldn’t it be great if he found a hundred indie directors and gave each a million dollars and said, “make a movie”.