Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Cruise/Paramount partnership severed

A war of words is brewing between reps for Tom Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, and Paramount Pictures. A spokesperson for Paramount told the Wall Street Journal Tuesday that movie company will be severing its relationship with Cruise/Wagner Productions, saying that Cruise's "recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount... As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal." In response, Wagner has claimed that agents for Cruise/Wagner Productions had stopped negotiating with the film giant a week ago and has since landed independent funding, and that Paramount's announcement was "surprising. For some reason, Paramount has chosen to negotiate in the press," Wagner said. In the past year, Cruise has been ridiculed for his couch-hopping appearance on Oprah, and has been outspoken about his Scientology beliefs.