TOM CRUISE HAS POWERFUL ALLIES

The battle lines are being drawn and the fallout from Tom Cruises “firing” from Paramount Studios is just beginning.  The basic drama is this:  Cruise is represented by CAA, a talent agency that right now has a level of power and influence that is almost unmatched in Hollywood history.  Think of a big name in Hollywood and chances are they are represented by CAA.  It's almost impossible to make a big movie without CAA's cooperation.  If CAA blacklists a studio because they feel the studio may damage their clients reputation, a studio has a severely limited roster of talent to chose from.  And now Paramount has insulted one of their biggest clients.  Richard Lovett, the president of CAA, said yesterday:

“Paramount has no credibility right now.  It is not clear who is running the studio and who is making the decisions.”

Cruise will sue Paramount if ownership of the projects currently in development by Cruise/Wagner Productions at Paramount gets ugly.   Cruises lawyer Bert Fields – who has never lost a case – said:

“(Paramount head Sumner Redstone has) lost it completely, or he’s been given breathtakingly bad advice.  That a mogul like Sumner Redstone could make a statement so vicious, so pompous, so petulant as that he didn’t want to make a deal with Tom Cruise because of his personal conduct — it tells you more about Sumner Redstone and Viacom, than about Tom Cruise.”

One thing that Fields did reveal was that he knows nothing of Cruise setting up a 100 million dollar line of credit to leave Paramount and venture out on his own, which Paula Wagner claims has been the plan for Cruise/Wagner Productions all along.  Fields said:

“I don’t think Tom has raised $100 million in a hedge fund.  And I know nothing about any such thing. I think that’s just talk.”

Cruises reaction to getting fired is pretty similar to my reaction the last time I got fired.  Except, instead of hiding behind lawyers and agents, I used my karate to settle the score.  Then I did it with a bunch of models.  On second thought, I guess our reactions weren’t very similar at all.  His was filled with fagocity, mine was totally boss and cool.