A little under a year ago I was interviewed by a Florida newspaper that asked me if I thought all the craziy juice that seemed to be flowing out of Tom Cruise these days was going to ruin War of the Worlds. I said “no”. It takes longer than that… and that we would really see if all his antics are doing his career any harm around Mission Impossible 3 and beyond.
Well… like Superman Returns, Mission Impossible 3 made a lot of money… but no where near the amount Paramount was expecting from it (especially since most people seem to think it was a really good film). People are getting sick of Tom Cruise. Period.
It looks like Paramount is recognizing this too. Cruise’s new contract deal is a HUGE downsize from his previous one that Paramount offered him. Here’s what the good folks over at Cinimatical had to say:
Paramount’s new offer, while still generous, is a far cry from $10 million/year. According to unnamed people familiar with the deal, the studio is offering Cruise and Wagner in the neighborhood of “$2 million plus a $500,000 discretionary fund each year for two years.”
The funny thing is I don’t think Cruise would be able to find another studio willing to offer him anything better right now. This guy MUST strat going into MAJOR PR mode… and soon. Start acting a little normal. Don’t hide… don’t wait for it to all blow over… because we’re way past that point were that would have done any good. Now he has to fix things. The longer he waits… the worse it will get.
The real tragedy in all of this is that like Russell Crowe… Tom Cruise is actually one hell of an actor. I’m a fan of his work and enjoy seeing him do it. But all the talent in the world won’t mean squat if he doesn’t do something about his image… and fast.
I have read so many lies about Tom Cruise on the press this past year that I don’t believe anything they say anymore. If they were true he probably would have married Katie about 2000 times. He would have eaten placenta which he only said as a joke while laughing on a TV interview I watched. He would have split with Katie 3000 times. And many many more. All of his movies would have sunk at the box office while the statistics still show his movies keep being international hits of one or another magnitude, but International box office HITS. All these lies and attacs towards him had made me start to think about what is really going on here. Why so many lies? Why so many attacks? It doesn’t make sense that suddenly everybody has become so evil. Well, I suspect he might have been right when he attacked psychiatry last year and now they are attacking back covertly. It’s the only explanation that makes sense to me. He said the truth and that could put their multi billion drug business in danger. Ouch!! So I am starting to consider Tom as a very brave man who faced all alone the global fraud of psychiatry and who is now paying for having dared to face the multi billion dollar psychiatric drug industry fraud!! Don’t accept to be brainwashed by the media lies anymore. Let’s all USE our brains and honestly investigate and find the TRUTH behind! I have already been doing so for a while and you wouldn’t believe the evidence I have found so far…it’s really scary.
I’ve grown tired of all the folks saying that Cruise can act. He has ONE character; that’s it. He’s used it to his best ability in every film. It’s really time for him to reach out and explore acting; then, he might have greater street cred. Until then, look for him in the same role but with different supporting characters.
Tom Cruise is an AWESOME actor, probably one of the greatest ever. But, like most people with a lot of money, goes overboard. Unfortunately, like other great actors (Ahem, Kevin Spacey) he won’t be able to hold a movie on his own merit anymore. He’ll become a great secondary character, and that’s too bad.
Best TC movie? Interview with a Vampire!
I don’t get all this anti-Tom Cruise stuff. Are you all saying you’d prefer it if he went back to being the styled and stage-managed, bland, bland, bland mannequin he used to be? What’s all that about? Don’t we have enough pre-programmed, pre-packaged, boring as hell movie stars already? Celebrities SHOULD be nuts! The nuttier the better! I wish he’d take a leaf out of Mel Gibson’s book and start financing his own films – but the Cruiser’s films would all be about Xenu!
Tom Cruise and his antics (couch jumping) was just a publicity stunt to promote his movie “War of the World”. Obviously, it worked.
Sure, he can be irratating but no more than any other actors doing something similiar to draw attention. For celebrities, it’s called business.
If I understand what you mean by “Don’t hide”, Tom will never admit it. Not if he has lot to lose. Give him 15 or 20 years. By then he’ll be past his prime and no one is going to really care. Think Ian McKellen.
I’m not a Tom Cruise fan nor am I defending him, but I can appreciate a talent when I see one.
Perhaps Tom should take a long (very long) vacation. It will give him time to regroup and try to figure out what his needs are. I mean when you have everything, nothing seems important. But then again, I could be wrong.
I’ve always been a fan of Tom but I think he was going downhill well before WotW. He needs to take a couple of years away from acting. Produce, volunteer, go to Africa and feed starving children. Anything but do movies. He should really diasppear off the radar for at least a year, let people sort of forget what happened (I don’t think anyone will forget the couch jumping antics for a few years – at least!) but it may help ease the public into seeing him again. I wish him the best of luck. I really hope his career makes it out of this slump.
Is this more the fault of the media? I mean they keep talking about pictures of their baby, and ‘has anyone seen the baby’ He hasn’t done anything ‘nutty’ in a long time. I think M3 was good, but did not do as well because its the third film in a franchise. I like Tom Cruise. I also like Mel Gibson. But like people I call friends, I don’t always agree with their actions or opinions.
So they cut back a bit on the contract. Like C/W productions is going to really suffer. Besides, Cruise and Wagner have co-produced movies outside of Paramount (although DreamWorks will use the studio for distribution) and y’know something..?
Good for Paramount.
uumm superman returns has yet to make any money…they have not even broken even.
Thank GOD! I honestly think that Cruise is vastly overrated, especially over the last couple of years. Tom is fucking psycho. He needs to cut the crap and join us humans again. Does anybody really even care about Tom anymore?
Cruise operates within a certain zone in movies ie anger or action scenes. Give him something that requires the exhibition of true emotions ie the pool scene in Minority Report and he fails miserably.
With the exception of Born on the 4th of July he has all the nuance of a cement block.
Its only his physical attributes that allow him to sell tickets. Will he able to handle character roles when he is no longer able to do the physical stuff?
I highly doubt.
He was and is still overpaid. But then again so are all entertainers. All the power to them if they can get someone to pay it.
I don’t think that Tom is crazy its just that he went about things all wrong. Anyways I agree with John I think Tom is a good actor and doesn’t get the credit he deserves sometimes. I thought that he should have gotten an Oscar nomination for Collateral instead of Jamie Foxx. I still think that Tom can have a great film career but he does have to fix things right now instead of waiting for things to blow over.
He’s nucking futs. The kid is a PILLOW. Katie’s brainwashed.
And in other breaking news, the sky is blue and the grass is green.
I’ll be honest, I (and my wife) have a harder and harder time watching the guy in movies after all the goofy shit he’s done or said…he’s definitely a great actor, but his actions off screen have really hurt his image. This all makes it more difficult trying to separate the movie character he’s playing versus the reality that the guy is nuckin futs.
The most recent movie of his that I watched was War of the Worlds, and I had a hard time watching him in it…none-the-less that his character was kind of a dick to began with too.
I think the baby exists, but that the kid was adopted and that the whole pregancy was fake. Anyone ever see some of her pregnancy pics from when she was “supposedly” 8 months or later pregnant? She was wearing normal hip-hugger jeans that fit perfect on her — no F’ing way is a girl that pregnant going to fit into her normal jeans at that point in her pregnancy.
Yeah but he is kind of crazy….
Here is the thing I dont know if Tom Cruise’s handlers are strong enough to get him to go into PR mode, because even though he needs to he seems to be of such strong conviction that he is sane that he wont back down from his view point……
Oh and his baby doesnt exist.
Personally I think he’s a nut job…. but he’s also a very rich nut job. The only movie I can say I was very fond of was The Last Samurai. At times I totally lost track that I was watching Tom Cruise.
Agreed and agreed.
The problem is that the majority of moviegoers don’t have the ability to separate the actor from their work. For example, I think that Tom Cruise is crazier than a June bug on a string, but I also think that he does some damn good movies.
The movie public thinks Tom Cruise = Crazy = Bad Movies = I’m not paying $10 to see it.
Which is unfortunate.
But then again, the actors are the ones who encourage this connection when the work is good and they are not being busted for drunk driving or extolling the benefits of Scientology.
Cruise did the right thing some time ago, by firing his sister (a fellow Hubbardite) as his PR flack and rehiring his previous PR flack who kept him quiet, uncontroversial and on message.
He’s got a long way to go, what with the Missing Baby Suri storyline, the Possible Fake Pregnant Fiancee storyline, the Psychology Is Evil storyline, etc. etc.
He needs to call upon all his acting skills and start acting like a normal human being.