Columnist Nikki Finke on Cruise/Redstone.
MFalc1
C'mon, fire the grinning actor idiot because he's lost his box
office appeal, or because his first dollar gross is so disgustingly
huge that no studio has a prayer any more of making money on his motion
pictures, or because of any other business reason. And fire him in the
usual Hollywood way: with a bland-but-dignified press release about how
much these 14 years have meant to both parties, ad nauseum. But, jeez,
don't fire him with this lame stuff that Sumner didn't like the way
Tiny Tom behaved. If that's true, then no Hollywood studio can ever
hire anyone. Drugs, sex, harrassment, mendacity, fraud: Paramount like
most major studios has a rich history of horrible behavior by its
work-for-hires. I could reel off for you 10 people now with rich studio
deals, some at Paramount, who should be in jail or rehab or the Funny
Farm but instead are well-paid miscreants.
Far be it from me to judge whether Cruise belongs in a straitjacket or
not, or whether Scientology is a cult or a religion, or whether he's
gay or not, or whether MI3 would have done a lot more business in
theaters if another big star had been the lead. But it's absurd for
Redstone to make an issue of Cruise's conduct like he has. My god,
Sumner himself was openly shtupping one of his producer girlfriends on
the lot for years, and his own son is suing him. And Redstone looked
the other way when Les Moonves carried on a long adulterous affair with
employee Julie Chen and then married her after dumping his wife in the
process. Which are all violations of so many corporate codes of conduct
that I don't think I can count that high. And let's not forget how
the old guy's studio is still in business with Robert Evans who not
only was a hopeless cocaine addict and regular client of Heidi
Fleiss's prostitution call girl ring for years but pled the Fifth
Amendment in connection with a murder rap no less. And let's not forget
that Redstone didn't blink when Brad Grey's name surfaced in that
Anthony Pellicano (the thug P.I.) mess. So lemme get this straight:
Cruise's jumping around on Oprah's couch is worse?
But the fact is that even Cruise's recent movies, the ones done after
he'd made Scientology the publicly avowed cause celebre of his life
personally and professionally, and after he declared Katie Holmes the
love of his life and knocked her up without benefit of marriage, are
still top earners since 2000. Cruise did better for his studios with
MI3, War of the Worlds, Collateral, The Last Samurai, Minority Report,
Vanilla Sky and MI2 than almost any other star, including George
Clooney, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Adam
Sandler. My best guess is only Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp and Mel Gibson
did better box office.
Mark L. Falconer-film and video links at
http://hometown.aol.com/mfalc1/links.html
Agent Smith
news:1156404703....@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> Excerpted from deadlinehollywooddaily.com
> C'mon, fire the grinning actor idiot because he's lost his box
> office appeal, or because his first dollar gross is so disgustingly
> huge that no studio has a prayer any more of making money on his
> motion pictures, or because of any other business reason. And fire him
> in the usual Hollywood way: with a bland-but-dignified press release
> about how much these 14 years have meant to both parties, ad nauseum.
> But, jeez, don't fire him with this lame stuff that Sumner didn't like
> the way Tiny Tom behaved. If that's true, then no Hollywood studio can
> ever hire anyone. Drugs, sex, harrassment, mendacity, fraud: Paramount
> like most major studios has a rich history of horrible behavior by its
> work-for-hires. I could reel off for you 10 people now with rich
> studio deals, some at Paramount, who should be in jail or rehab or the
> Funny Farm but instead are well-paid miscreants.
Is Nikki Finke a Scientologist? :(
MFalc1
No. She mentioned three months ago in a column that the Church was
sending members en masse to MI:3 screenings in the Hollywood area. And
that wasn't
said in a Hubbard-friendly manner.
Agent Smith
news:1156704880....@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
She sounds a little too Sickentology friendly to me. She should learn
to recognize the difference between a bandwagon and a steamroller, and
jump on the steamroller so before it crushes her.