Tom Cruise Stays Productive

Mon., Aug. 28, 2006 4:35 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

When Tom Cruise says, "Show me the money," people listen.

Agents for the 43-year-old actor secured a deal Monday that will help Cruise maintain both his creative independence and his status as a big-ticket producer, despite high-profile criticism last week from the peanut gallery otherwise known as Paramount.

Creative Artists Agency, which supposedly pulled out of negotiations with Paramount Pictures a week before Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone called Cruise's offscreen behavior leading up to the release of Mission: Impossible III "creative suicide," brokered a two-year deal with investment company First and Goal LLC that will keep Cruise/Wagner Productions' afloat. The company found itself last week without a spot on the Paramount lot for the first time in 14 years.

The energetic-sounding First and Goal is headed up by Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, NVR Inc. chairman Dwight Schar and Six Flags president and CEO Mark Shapiro. The trio have an option to renew with Cruise/Wagner after the two years are up.

"Dan Snyder and Mark Shapiro are proven winners and Paula and I look forward to many mutual successes," Cruise said in a statement. (Schar still has to earn his stripes, apparently.)

First and Goal is set to provide less than $3 million a year for Cruise/Wagner's overhead costs, a decidedly smaller number than the reported $10 million the duo had been getting from Paramount in years past to cover development and unforeseen expenses. But the First and Goal deal does resemble what Paramount was said to be offering the duo last month--$2.5 million a year for two years.

However, this arrangement with the new investors allows Cruise/Wagner to push projects through any distribution channel they desire and Cruise, of course, is free to work with any studio. Even Paramount, if he so chooses.

"Tom and I have had a plan to build an independent company and partnering with highly regarded entrepreneurs like Dan, Mark and Dwight will offer us a tremendous opportunity to be at the forefront of where the motion picture industry is moving," Wagner said in a statement. "We are entering into what we know will be a profitable relationship with unlimited creative and financial potential for both our groups."

After Paramount cut the cord last Tuesday with the production entity that helped usher in projects ranging from the Mission: Impossible franchise to War of the Worlds and Shattered Glass, Wagner told reporters that she and Cruise had hooked up with a private hedge fund to finance their production venture, but Cruise's lawyer, Bertram Fields, said there currently was no such deal.

"When we began discussing this idea in mid-August we immediately recognized the potential for partnering with Cruise/Wagner, and with Cruise himself, whose success as an actor across all genres is incomparable," Shapiro said. "Cruise/Wagner Productions has an existing infrastructure in place, an appealing track record, and the most bankable movie star in the world as a partner in the company."

So we hear. Despite the Jerry Maguire star's declining Q score--the public's not thinking as many happy thoughts about Cruise as they used to--the Golden Globe winner's last seven films pulled in more than $100 million apiece in the U.S. alone, and in June Forbes magazine dubbed Cruise the most powerful celeb of all.