Wednesday, August 23, 2006



Yesssss, I've been fired! From DListed: "Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures unit is ending its 14-year relationship with Tom Cruise's film production company because of the actor's offscreen behavior, the company's chairman said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Sumner Redstone, Viacom chairman, said the behavior of the star of the "Mission: Impossible" series and "Top Gun" was unacceptable to the company, according to the Wall Street Journal story e-mailed to reporters. Cruise, one of Hollywood's biggest stars, has been known more recently for his antics on U.S. television talk shows, including jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch to declare his love for Katie Holmes and criticizing the use of antidepressant drugs. "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. "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount." This is the first step in the continued downfall of one Tom Cruise, and I am ecstatic. He's on the road to becoming this century's Howard Hughes.

Paula Wagner, Tom's producing partner, responds: “Whatever remarks Mr. Redstone would make about Tom Cruise personally or as an actor have no bearing on what this business issue is. I don't understand why this would be turned into a personal attack. Because that's what it is. That's letting one of your greatest assets walk out the door. It looks like bad business to me.""There must be another agenda that the studio has in mind to take one of their greatest assets and malign him this way. We in fact made a decision not to continue our relationship with Paramount Pictures,"Paula claims that they decided to produce independently and they quit and weren't fired." For some reason, Paramount has chosen to negotiate in the press. It's not really the most businesslike approach. We've had virtually no dealings with Mr. Redstone."

Yikes, I'd hate to be in the position of having to defend Tom Cruise. Let's see where this goes...

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