FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
August 24, 2006
Brand Tom Cruise for Sale
Whether Paramount Pictures cut off Tom Cruise as a result of his recent conduct--bouncing up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch, attacking Brooke Shields for taking prescription drugs, publicly speaking out against psychiatry, zealously advocating Scientological ideals--or because he was no longer providing and optimal return on investment (ROI) is moot at this point. It really doesn't even matter whether Paramount shut the door in his face or if his Cruise/Wagner Productions company opted out in favor of going independent with the backing of $100 million from two unnamed hedge funds. What does matter is that the brand that is Tom Cruise is for sale, and financing it may prove risky business.
Today, The Wall Street Journal reported just how risky that business could be. Citing examples of failure at generating returns at the box office for hedge funds that backed such films as Poseidon, V for Vendetta, Lady in the Water, and Ant Bully, the article explains how hedge funds are starting to pull away from Hollywood.
As various forms of new media services push to the fore, video download services, Netflix, and DVRs in particular, Tinseltown isn't always cashing out huge at the box office these days. The cost of movie making continually increases, while the ROI appears to remain flat.
Big Hollywood studios could take some advice from Star Circle Pictures, a motion picture company covered in the September issue of Fast Company. According to that film company, there exists strategies for reducing the risk associated with movies. Perhaps even Cruise/Wagner should heed that advice.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at August 24, 2006 1:12 PM | Category: arts + entertainment |
3 Comments
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ok, my 2 cents: I think why the public is so interested in Cruise & Co is his total lack of human sensitivity. True, he is a great actor. He can fake anything, and while Lauer pried open his total craziness and we saw it, Cruise has us all fooled on screen, a sign of a complete master.
Good for him.
Totally self involved, (small man syndrome?) he overpowers everything..even wife 2 is taller), he MUST be extremely difficult to deal with in REAL life, not REEL life.
Somewhere in time, it will all come tumbling down a'la Mel G and at 3 in the morning, drink in hand he will deal with it, or die.
in essence, you're saying Tom is cruising for a public bruising? agreed.
I think most of the "Old Hollywood" gentlemen like Humphrey Bogart, Gene Kelly, Fred Astair understood that their off screen persona was tied into their on-screen value. As an actor of that visibility, Tom Cruise should know that everything you do potentially relates back to the business of selling yourself.
His chiding of Matt Lauer is just as damaging as say your boss finding drunken Acapulco MySpace pictures and not promoting you at your job. After all, Tom was on a press junket for the studio.