Believe it or not, there ARE consequences in Hollywood when a mega-star’s ego and self-absorption seemingly cloud his common-sense business sense:
Paramount Pictures has cut its 14-year-old ties to Tom Cruise’s production company because of his off-screen behavior, the chairman of the studio’s parent company told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
The remarks by Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone signaled the end of one of the most lucrative production deals commanded by an A-list Hollywood star and followed other signs that Cruise’s stature had been damaged by his conduct during the past year.
And you can bet some of Hollywood’s players will sit up and notice: this is a time when studios are extremely preoccupied by the bottom-line. And image counts for something. MORE:
There was no immediate comment on the Journal interview from Cruise’s representatives, or from officials at Viacom.
Although Cruise recently topped Forbes magazine’s annual list of the world’s 100 most powerful celebrities, his latest film, “Mission: Impossible III” opened in May to lower-than-expected ticket sales. Days later an opinion poll showed his star power had dimmed considerably in the eyes of the public.And last month, the Los Angeles Times reported that Paramount Chairman Brad Grey was in talks with representatives for Cruise and his production partner, Paula Wagner, seeking to slash the amount of money the studio pays their movie company, Cruise/Wagner Productions.
Months earlier, Grey was one of several movie industry executives who publicly rallied to Cruise’s defense to insist that the actor’s status and popularity were undiminished.
You could say this is a new development — but it really isn’t.
If you read show business history, throughout the years, going back to the silents, movie studios paid big bucks to create public images of perfection for their stars. Movies sold illusions of personality. This imagery reached its height during the peak of the studio system. There was a love-hate relationship with powerful newspaper gossip columnists, who could undermine the studio’s carefully-crafted images of their stars. But the gossip columnists also played a vital role in helping the studios CREATE the money-attracting star images (in running image-enhancing items that were sometimes blatantly false, planted by the studios’ efficient p.r. machines) that helped sell the actors to the public. Most images were glamorous ones.
Fast-foward to the late 20th and early 21st centuries, where the Big Studios Supreme Reign was over and stars began to command huge salaries and have more control — to their advantage and detriment — over their own images. Most are wise enough to keep their p.r. noses clean by hiring experienced public relations reps.
Why? Because even if the tabloids have a field day doing a number on someone, in general stars still need to have a certain mystique.
Cruise had it — until he seemingly went into melt-down.
He jumped on Oprah’s couch, gushed over his fiancee, was constantly in the printed press and television stories reporting him lecturing on the glories of Scientology and the evils of psychiatry — which you could argue might be of benefit to him because he seemingly had some “issues.”
Add to that a spate of Cruise-related mini-news stories: Cruise getting squirted and grabbing the arm of the squirter….Cruise supposedly (he denied it) having hand in halting the re-run of a South Park episode that questioned his sexuality…tabloid stories screeching about his baby.
The bottom line: in terms of imagery, Cruise has started to lose the mystique and has become in imagery terms damaged goods. The LA Times on the poll on Cruise:
[Half] of those surveyed registered an “unfavorable” opinion of Cruise. Many cited his off-screen behavior during the past year, including his intense public discussions of his faith in Scientology, and his blunt criticism of psychiatry and actress Brooke Shield’s treatment for postpartum depression.
Cruise also became the butt of jokes for his manic, couch-hopping appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” last May to declare his love for actress Katie Holmes, who recently gave birth to Cruise’s first biological child, a daughter named Suri.
“As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” Redstone was quoted as saying in the Wall Street Journal report e-mailed to reporters. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.”
According to the Journal, representatives for Cruise said his production company, which had been on the Paramount lot since 1992, had decided to set up a new independent operation financed by two top hedge funds, which they declined to name.
The Times notes that Cruise’s highly-touted Mission Impossible III didn’t do as well as expected.
If my personal reaction to The New Tom Cruise is any reaction, he has hurt himself. I used to like his films. But now I can’t watch him anymore.
Why? Because watching a film requires a suspension of knowledge of reality, where for the time when you get engrossed in the film even though you know character X is played by actor X who has appeared in zillions of other roles, you BELIEVE that actor is the character.
I now see Cruise and see a somewhat…eccentric….actor who thinks the public just can’t wait to see him jump on couches, gush over his fiance, and lecture all of us on why psychiatry is evil. I have no desire to watch or rent his films…because I see Tom Cruise the actor acting whenever he’s in a role.
Perhaps that’s part= of the reason why Paramount nixed a continuing association with him. Another part of it could be cost-cutting — to send other Hollywood stars a message and begin to roll back the mega-salaries stars began to demand and receive in the late 20th Century.
Cruise would be wise to keep a low profile for a while, avoid becoming the subject of any tabloid stories, pick some meaty roles and get recognized for his WORK not for his flamboyance…or for lectures seemingly aimed at showing how much smarter he is than the rest of us on what psychiatry entails.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.