Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner take over United Artists

in a surprising move, mostly for United Artists, Tom Cruise and long time producing partner Paula Wagner will be put in charge over at United Artist film studio. The folks over at cnn.com give us this:

Tom Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner have been put in charge of United Artists, a film studio that was formed by Hollywood actors including Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford.

Wagner will serve as chief executive of the company, which is owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. Cruise will appear in UA films, but also be allowed to star in films from rival studios, MGM announced Thursday. Cruise/Wagner Productions said then that it had secured financing from two unidentified hedge funds to back future projects.

MGM said Thursday that Cruise and Wagner have taken an ownership interest in UA, but did not specify financial terms. The pair will have full control of the production slate, which is expected to be four films a year, MGM said.

“There is a complete alignment of interests in this deal,” MGM chief operating officer Rick Sands told The Associated Press Thursday. “They are equity owners in the company and they share with us in the upside.”

United Artists has been virtually mothballed for several years, although the studio’s logo will appear on the latest James Bond film, “Casino Royale,” due out in two weeks. Most recently, UA had been used to acquire or produce low-budget independent films. But under Cruise and Wagner, the studio is free to make $100 million action films starring Cruise, as well as lower budget fare, MGM said.

“It really depends on what they as the creative executives want to produce,” Sands said. “It’s a real studio that we are reinventing.”

Sands said financing for the films would come from partnerships with private equity funds that have become more influential in Hollywood in recent years.

You have to hand it to Cruise, when the going gets tough the tough gets going. Since his bad publicity started hurting his pocket book Tom Cruise hasn’t stopped working to get back on top. The guy has finally found the right deal. He is getting the best of both worlds with his name attached to this company and the freedom to still work with other studios. My bet is he took a lot less money (especially since finances were not mentioned) but he still made the right decision since now he looks like he has risen above the fallout at Paramount.

The more I read into the article the more I see that this business deal will be good for all parties involved. United Artists is getting some much needed publicity and they still will have a level headed person running the company; Paula Wagner, she has the real power as chief executive of the company, Cruise is more of the face and the talent, not to mention the connections for U.A.

U.A will get help financially from Tom’s friends both in the Scientology world and outside of it. Tom will get back some of the respect that he’s lost.

Something I find interesting and hopeful is that the last movie that Tom made with United Artists was Rain Man, one of the best films he has been associated with. Perhaps this move will inspire Cruise to settle down and step away from the action roles and dip back into the more interesting character roles of his earlier years.