Tom Cruise and 'M:I4' -- the new reality of film deals (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Los Angeles Times ^ | February 15, 2010 | Claudia Eller

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It's hardly a secret that Tom Cruise is no longer Hollywood's top-gun star.

The 47-year-old boyish-looking actor has had a rough stretch, from an embarrassing jumping episode on Oprah Winfrey's couch to the clunker "Lions for Lambs." Many believe that his controversial career has peaked.

Now, in order to revive his big-screen role as dashing secret agent Ethan Hunt in Paramount's "Mission: Impossible IV," Cruise consented to a deal that would have once been unthinkable: He's forgoing a preferential slice of the movie's ticket sales, the sine qua non of clout in Hollywood.

Cruise will still earn a handsome payday. He will be paid $20 million of his $25-million fee upfront to star in and produce the fourth "Mission" film, which is scheduled to hit theaters Memorial Day weekend 2011.

But he won't collect a hefty "first dollar" cut of box-office receipts that entitles stars to skim a movie's revenues before the studio earns back its huge investment and gets a fee for distributing the film, according to people familiar with the deal. If that seems sensible, it wasn't always the case.

Cruise's pay structure illustrates the "new normal" for Hollywood's A-list actors and filmmakers, who no longer can command the super-rich deals that awarded them swollen payouts on movies even when the studios lost money. With once-reliable DVD sales that propped up movie profits in a swoon, the studios are no longer willing to accept second financial billing to talent.

"Over the last 25 years, agents were getting better and better deals for their clients because the studios were star-dependent," said Jeremy Zimmer, a partner at United Talent Agency. "Now, there's a complete retrenchment where the studios are less star-dependent and making fewer movies, so they're more willing to walk away unless a deal makes sense for them."

snip

[abb]

Flashback to 3 1/2 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/business/media/23cruise.html
Fired or Quit, Tom Cruise Parts Ways With Studio

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/aug/23/business/fi-cruise23
Viacom to Break Ties With Cruise

[longtermmemmory]

isn’t there “a list” where the studios have a dollar for dollar earnings of each actor and actress?

The list is not made public but the studios use it to determine what a movie with performer X will recieve in budget.

[TET1968]

Tom Cruise & Brad Pitt are actors.
There is no reason to feel threatened by these guys.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Terrible actor

More terrible person

[abb]

I do not know, but such information would be interesting. Hollywood is all about the money - always has, always will be.

[SkyPilot]

If I was in charge of a major studio, I wouldn't pay Tom Cruse 25 bucks to star in a major film, much less twenty five million dollars.

While he used to be a "star" years ago,

Many, many movie audiences are much less apt to even see a movie if he is in it.

An audience must first "like" a movie actor in order to cheer for them in the plot. People liked Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, and Jimmy Stewart. I believe they still like Matt Damon (I know, he is strange too), but the Jason Bourne movies prove audiences like his characters.

Cruise has long since worn thin. He is a whack job of a real person, and his Scientology cult has only made him weirder.

[Snickering Hound]

[Sherman Logan]

In one of the MI movies he rides on the skid of a helicopter that flies into the Chunnel and then he jumps from it onto the train.

I have a friend who’s a heli pilot and he says anybody who tries to fly a helicopter into a tunnel will get a quick course in aerodynamics.

If they insist on action heroes being super-heroes with magical powers, they should at least give them a costume and a backstory.

[agere_contra]

Just this minute finished watching "Collateral". It's a superb Cruise movie.

[AdaGray]

I can’t watch any movie this guy is in. He just seems so self-conscious and phony.

[Tijeras_Slim]

My favorite was a motorcycle chase in MI2 ( I think) where the bikes transition from pavement to dirt. In one second the nike has slicks, the next treds. A miracle!

[parsifal]

That’s now known as “Dazzling special effects!” Dreck is a better word.

parsy, who says Mission Impossible isn’t supposed to be science fiction

[Steely Tom]

That's Steve Jobs, isn't it?

[Cyropaedia]

Just this minute finished watching "Collateral". It's a superb Cruise movie.

Well, it was made in visceral, gritty style by Michael Mann.

And, Cruise had to play a ruthless, unsympathetic villain.

Jaime Foxx was the designated hero that everyone had to cheer for.

Cruise would be wise to take more of those of roles.

[DemforBush]

My friends and I used to have a running joke back in college about Cruise:

“Hey, you ever see that one Tom Cruise movie...you know, the one where he plays the Cocky Young Guy?”

Well, *I* thought it was funny. :-)

[Sherman Logan]

Agreed. When they go over the top like that it just shatters my willing suspension of disbelief and kicks me right out of the story.

If they’re setting the movie in another universe with different laws of physics they should have the decency to tell us up front, like they did in Lord of the Rings.

[abb]

IMO, this was one of the more significant news articles recently about the industry.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703455804575057551112653666.html

FEBRUARY 11, 2010
Giants Ally on Film in Bid to Promote Family TV
By SUZANNE VRANICA and ELLEN BYRON

The world’s biggest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, and Procter & Gamble, the world’s biggest consumer-products maker, are jointly creating a made-for-TV movie, in an effort to promote “family-friendly” alternatives to what they say is increasingly risqué TV fare.

The two advertising heavyweights have teamed up on the two-hour “Secrets of the Mountain,” to be broadcast in April on NBC. The movie, which focuses on a single mother who brings her family to a mountainside cabin, highlights values—such as generosity, honesty and togetherness—that Wal-Mart and P&G executives say are in short supply on television.

[The Comedian]

His kind of movie just sucks. 12 mercenaries with automatic weapons spraying fire in his direction and MISS. He fires once with his widdle pistol from 200 yards away and HITS. And then you get the gauntlet scene where he runs thru a gauntlet of automatic weapon fire, shooting TWO widdle pistols, one in each hand, and dodging bullets, and hitting targets. And then the explosion in the background where his shockwave blown air speed is faster than the shockwave blown shrapnel speed.

parsy, who gets sick at this kind of movie

I've never agreed with you so whole-heartedly in our online lives.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Abathar]

"With once-reliable DVD sales that propped up movie profits in a swoon, the studios are no longer willing to accept second financial billing to talent."

Around here there use to be several video stores, now that the Red Box machines are all over the place that you can rent a new release movie for $1 every rental store has closed. Why buy a movie when you can rent it ten times and still only pay half the cost of buying it new?

[PAR35]

Around here there use to be several video stores, now that the Red Box machines are all over the place that you can rent a new release movie for $1 every rental store has closed. Why buy a movie when you can rent it ten times and still only pay half the cost of buying it new?

I try to limit myself to $5 movies. Occasionally, I get lucky, like 20 westerns for $5 or 20 war movies for $5. At least a few are going to be worth the hour or two that each movie runs. I did break the rule for a boxed set of the 3 released Bourne movies - I think it was $24.95 for the set. Trying to clear out inventory before the Blu-Ray version came out, I suppose.

But if you are paying $20 for DVDs, you need to hit the bargain bins.