comment #1

rr3333 says ...

You can compare the old George to Redstone, but unfortuantely the current George aint what he used to be.

To say the least, he's pretty out of it mentally.

His son-in-law handles most of the upper mgmt stuff and Brian Cashman runs the baseball operation.

The big boys at the Yankees are very protective of Steingrabbers image, so the newspapers dont talk about how the mighty has fallen.

comment #2

MagillaOrangutang says ...

Its ironic, if Sumner had taken his dementia meds then Cruise's deal would have been saved!
Sumner voiced the opinion alot of people have. These other anti-Sumner voices are hangers-on protecting their meal ticket.

comment #3

bostonlackey says ...

This whole thing is ridiculous; a bunch of over-privileged, rich assholes fighting over whose sandbox is bigger. Steinbrenner would slap these bitches silly. The bottom line is this: Ridiculous Star Salaries + Irresponsible Studio Spending = Decreased Profits & Shitty-Ass Movies. This has been the trend for the last 16 years (when media consolidation truly began). True, you don't need 200 executives to make 20 movies a year but you also don't need $10 million a year for a platoon of sycophants and film school rejects to answer the goddamn phone and make sure you get your daily Starbucks and Jamba Juice.



Consider this. Cruise/Wagner has probably taken in anywhere from $50-$100 million dollars from Paramount over the last 13 years to "operate" on the study lot. Look at those numbers and tell me it's not wasteful. Paramount could have made seven SIDEWAYS for the low end and twenty NARCS for the high. That's 1 modest film per year for 13 years for what Paramount paid C/W for office space. That's 13 films Paramount didn't make just to give Cruise and Wagner their own parking spots. And yet Paramount agreed to the expenditure so they are just as much to blame.



If Hollywood had any balls, they would hire a ball-busting East Coast consulting firm to come in and do some serious business and financial consulting, someone like Price Waterhouse who would gut a studio like fresh trout and consolidate operations. You'd probably see anywhere from a 30-50 percent reduction in staff alone, a complete elimination of "discretionary funds," and the absolute end of these kind of C/W sweetheart deals.



You'd free up so much cash, movie output would go up 50 percent, marketing budgets would be slashed and the ad loons would be shoved to the back office where they belong until it was actually time to sell a finished product.



You could then renegotiate with SAG and set up a pay scale where the highest-earning actors get no more than $14,400 (minimum wage annual salary) up front with 10-25 percent of back-end deals that were calculated off hard GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principals) reconciliation--in other words, they'd still be the richest motherfuckers on the planet.



Anyway, that's my dream...

comment #4

MagillaOrangutang says ...

It would have been so cool for Cruise to say "Damn, Ive been fired!". But, in typical Cruise fashion he has to always be "right" and maintain invulnerability.

His aging popularity was built on vacant arrogance and the impression of "sexy" young guy virility. His persona is almost totally devoid of humanity and this will prevent him from becoming emotionally relevent to anyone ever again.

I do find his production of the "The Others" fascinating. Especially the lost father wandering in the mist searching for a home whose eventual discovery does not provide the expected comfort. Instead, he is further distanced from family as he comes to terms with distant internal longing.

comment #5

rr3333 says ...

If only Cruise were honest and tell us that he requested his houseboy Ricky change his name to Rick, instead of the Katie/Kate stories ...

comment #6

Pelham123 says ...

Damn, count me in with bostonlackey's beautiful dream!

comment #7

actionman says ...

Bostonlackey--spoken like someone who does NOT work in the industry or someone who has been toiling at the bottom with no chance of promotion. Dude...are u serious? "True, you don't need 200 executives to make 20 movies a year but you also don't need $10 million a year for a platoon of sycophants and film school rejects to answer the goddamn phone and make sure you get your daily Starbucks and Jamba Juice."---Do u know how movies are made?

comment #8

zoey says ...

When you are dealing with an industry that regards most screenwriters as the lowest life form on the industry foodchain... and with suits that don't understand that it all starts with words on a page and not with lunch at the Ivy... then what can you expect?

Maybe if Hollywood wants to control actor salaries, they should start buying better screenplays. It's a lot easier to sell a great movie with no-names than a piece of garbage that has been churned out by the incestuous, follow-the-leader lemmings that populate so many pitch meetings. If you have crap on the page, then you usually have to have a proven (read expensive) name above the title to sell it.