Posted on 02/14/2010 3:09:00 PM PST by abb
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."
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(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I refuse to pay $20 myself, but the wife will sometimes cave for the kids who want one of their “must have” collections that come out.
The movie, which focuses on a single mother....
Of course, they leave out the man / husband / father. When did husbands/fathers become such a taboo? Why does every other drama have to have a single mother? Sheesh.
Have you noticed how these scenes are becoming obligatory now? Sorta like the obligatory sex scenes in the later 70’s and 80’s. Its like they can’t make an action film without it. I think the first “explosion” one was one of the Rambo movies. But I am getting old and my memory is going. At any rate, they are way past tiring. The newer James Bond (about anything past Roger Moore) movies are just silly. I think I read somewhere that these movies are made with the aftermarket in mind and the sophistication level one finds in lower class neighborhoods in the Mid East. I wouldn’t doubt it. But it does make you appreciate “No Country for Old Men” and “In The Electric Mist”.
parsy, the movie critic
Not bad but it sounds like somebody got the idea from this classic country number.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jDleaINJKU
That would include me.
Tom Cruise, control freak.
I thought it captured his real essence.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910905/
Never heard of it until your post.
Thanks for the tip, Film Critic parsy!
Man, you are right about that. THAT is significant news. Once more companies realize they can be in the film business (now that the cost of making movies has gone way done, as has the cost and trouble of distribution, and fewer projects are star-driven), the studios are goners.
Look at those films made by that little church in Georgia. One was called “Fireproof,” I think. All the actors except one lead were just folks in the congregation, and the film was quite good. It certainly didn’t come off as amateurish compared to a lot of studio drivel.
>>>I look forward to the day when actors are wholly unnecessary to produce films. With computer generated characters, the technology isn’t too far from creating any image doing any thing. At that time, actors will cease to exist
Here’s a preview of what you want. Using that scenerio they made a good little movie nobody has seen. S1m0ne (2002)
A producer’s film is endangered when his star walks off, so he decides to digitally create an actress to substitute for the star, becoming an overnight sensation that everyone thinks is a real person
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/
As for Cruise, besides being a Scientology he is a mouth-breather. Watch and you will see, his chipmunk teeth are on permanent display. He doesn’t close his mouth.
In The Electric Mist..... I have read all of James Lee Burke's books and love them all, especially the Dave Robicheaux character. Tommy Lee Jones was great, but they butchered the book in that movie.
Not true. Daniel Craig's first Bond feature, Casino Royale was better than any of the Roger Moore installments.
I haven’t read them all yet but I’m working on it. There was another one that made it to film, Heaven’s Prisoner, I think but I haven’t seen it in a while.
parsy
So he’s “only” going to pocket 25 mil from this movie. Guess he will have to tighten the belt like the rest of us.
True, but it still is quite a trim from the $80 million he got from MI 3.
amd; who didn't know midgets were sex symbols, and doesn't think “boyish” applies to this 47 year old in any way other than his physique.
An amazing performance, but then again he was playing a reprehensible scumbag hawking his book to socially awkward guys on how he thought they should treat women, entitled “Seduce and Destroy”.
I hear Cruise is up to Ch 10 on Katie Holmes. ;)
LOL! Like Alan Ladd and his step stool. I think this guy did a better “Top Gun”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nKuoNhihh4
parsy, the strange
The only wife who really got what was promised was Nicole Kidman, although it may have been a case of sheer talent in her favor.
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