Musings
Cruise control
“As much as we like him personally, we thought it wrong to renew his deal... we don’t think someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot.”
Strong words from Sumner Redstrone of Paramout Pictures, referring to his company’s split with Tom Cruise after a very productive 14 years. The reason? Cruise’s infamous couch jumping on Oprah, his advocacy of Scientology and criticism of actress Brooke Shields for taking prescription drugs to treat postpartum depression. While Cruise is not exactly a Hollywood bad boy, studios there means business and no actor is bigger than the bottomline. I wonder what would happen if Bollywood studio heads decided to crack the whip too. Then the likes of Salman Khan (alleged black buck shooting, drunk driving and killing innocent people), Sanjay Dutt (the bomb blasts case), Fardeen Khan (cocaine possession) and others from their ilk would be out of business by now.
***
Moral dilemma
I have a bone to pick with Mumbai’s self-appointed guardians of morality. Who gives them the right to disrupt the lives of law-abiding Mumbaikars? The television blackout that we faced recently really had me fuming. There’s a government body that screens and filters all content that we’re seeing on our TV sets everyday. And they are of the opinion that it’s fit for viewing by an intelligent audience. In fact, all movies come with a censor certificate indicating the age group suitable to watch the film. Then who the hell are these moral flag-bearers to say that it’s not? Are they insinuating that we’re stupid, hence don’t know what’s good for us? Or worse, that the Censor Board is full of stupid people who are hell bent of corrupting Indian values?
Will the Censor Board please react with counter suits? And can I please sue them too?
(P.S. If you don’t like what you see, please do us all a favour and switch your TV off.)
2 comments:
while u say "no one is bigger than the bottomline", let me point out that Paramount has raked in over $492 million from Cruise movies till date ... so it is a big risk they're taking.
as for the censor champions, do you know they don't even have enough guys to vet movies meant for the theatres ... so who's gonna censor the TV content???
this place is amazing :)
btw, congratulations for making it back to print ... the shallow profession (TV) is for shallow people ;-)
Every multi-million dollar movie is a big gamble, so I don't think Paramount is worried. Because if there's one thing that they're certain about, is that Cruise is risky business.
Quoting the Washington Post:
The split was not completely unexpected. Tom Cruise costs a lot of money and Tom Cruise makes a lot of money. He is arguably still the reigning male action star in America. His last seven pictures each grossed more than $100 million at the domestic box office, but he reportedly takes home 20 percent of the ticket receipts. So reaching a financial impasse -- it is show business -- would be reasonable.
The Cruise split from Paramount comes at a time when the multinational media companies that own the Hollywood studios are rebelling against the big salaries and percentages paid to movie stars.
Redstone complained that while he thought Cruise's recent "Mission: Impossible III" was the best in the franchise, he says Cruise's antics cost the film $100 million to $150 million at the box office. The movie took in $393 million worldwide.
While $393 million sounds like a big box office success, the third "Mission: Impossible" reportedly cost $250 million to make and market, the movie theaters get half of the box office, and Cruise takes his cut. So it's possible that the movie was in the negative, though DVD sales are now where most of the profits are (Cruise gets a percentage of that, too).
I think that says it all. This will be a challenge for both the studio system and mega stars like Tom Cruise. Let's see who emerges the winner.
Post a Comment