Tom Cruise cut a limited financing deal Monday and has moved his production company off the Paramount Pictures after 14 years. His new partners include Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins and former top executive of Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN channel. The agreement, made between Tom, his film partner Paula Wagner and Daniel Snyder, have put things back on track for the actor. The investment fund, run by Snyder and partners will bear the overhead and development costs. However financial details are yet to be disclosed.
Paramount has been paying Cruise and Wagner a reported $10 million annually to cover the overhead of their production company, which has released films that Cruise has starred in, such as War of the Worlds and Mission: Impossible series, as well as The Others, with the star’s former wife Nicole Kidman, and Ask the Dust, with Salma Hayek and Colin Farrell.
Paramount Pictures had offered to renew the production contract with Cruise at a lower rate of about $2 million a year, but the actor balked. Although Cruise’s deal with Paramount expired July 31, the studio had extended it for another month to give Cruise more time to line up alternative financing.
Although the Hollywood studios usually finance the overhead costs of the production companies of their movie producers, Wagner said last week that she and Cruise were interested in creating a new business model that would draw its money from outside the traditional studio system.
