Missed last night’s news about the plug being pulled on James Mangold‘s 3:10 to Yuma, which was going to star Tom Cruise earlier this year and then lost Cruise and got Russell Crowe to step into his shoes. Nicole Laporte‘s Variety story quoted “sources” as saying that “part of Sony’s concern was the back-end gross of Crowe, a $20 million star [on top of} another concern that Westerns don’t typically travel abroad.” Mangold says Yuma isn’t a typical ponderous western, etc., but obviously this is yet another shutdown of a big-star movie over concerns about back-end gross participation. Go, ballsy studio execs…kick those stars in the ass! Cut ’em down to size! Stand tall, hang tough…revolution is in the air! (Claude Brodesser on TMZ.com agrees — “Hollywood to Gross Players: Drop Dead.”)