Informed Speculation

…but perhaps not for long.  Tom Cruise, once considered the king of the box office (a title that now belongs to Johnny Depp), has been dropped by a hot potato by Paramount:

Citing Tom Cruise’s yearlong metamorphosis from pure box-office phenomenon to pop-culture punch line, Viacom’s chairman, Sumner M. Redstone, said Tuesday that Paramount Pictures was ending its 14-year relationship with the actor’s production company.

Mr. Cruise’s representatives insisted that they had not been fired but instead had quit and had already lined up $100 million in financing to produce movies on their own.

Either way, the parting of the ways was anything but amicable. And it came as the latest sign that the media conglomerates that control Hollywood are growing impatient with the megastars who earn the highest salaries.

Last year, Mr. Cruise seemed to sprout cracks in his megawatt-smile facade: jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey’s couch to declare his love for the actress Katie Holmes; assailing Brooke Shields for taking prescription drugs to treat postpartum depression; and speaking out publicly against psychiatry and for his religion, Scientology.

Mr. Cruise’s third installment of the “Mission: Impossible” series has earned nearly $400 million worldwide and could earn half again that much from DVD sales. But its weak opening weekend in May left Paramount executives believing that the negative attention and mockery of Mr. Cruise had hurt the film. Worse still, Mr. Cruise’s rich chunk of the profits could leave the studio barely breaking even.

After weeks of negotiations to extend a production deal, Mr. Redstone said Tuesday that Paramount had given up.

“As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” Mr. Redstone told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the studio’s decision on its Web site. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.”

Of course, good ol’ Scientologist that he is, Tom tries to spin victory out of defeat, but don’t believe it:

Mr. Cruise’s partner in Cruise-Wagner Productions, said in an interview Tuesday that she and Mr. Cruise had, sometime “in the last few days,” told their agents at Creative Artists Agency to inform Paramount that they were terminating the contract talks.

Ms. Wagner said that she and Mr. Cruise had already obtained commitments from two hedge funds, one in New York and one in Los Angeles, for $100 million in revolving credit to make movies, and that they had begun looking for a new distribution deal.

“This is something we’ve dreamt of, to have an independently financed production company, where we can decide the films that we make, from high-concept to more personal pictures,” she said. “I think we’re in the forefront of a trend.”

As for Mr. Redstone’s allusion to Mr. Cruise’s conduct, Ms. Wagner fired back, “I have no answer for a stupid statement.” She speculated that Mr. Redstone was “trying to save face,” having learned from Wall Street chatter of Mr. Cruise’s hunt for alternative financing.

A spokesman for Mr. Redstone, Carl Folta, scoffed at Ms. Wagner’s talk of new financial backers. “Did they give you a name?” he said.

About Mr. Cruise, Mr. Folta said, “It’s a business decision, and it’s based on his behavior.”

Who cares, you may say, and you’re probably right.  Still, it’s nice to see a person as full of himself and intolerant of others as Cruise get his comeuppance…