Like the action-hero Tom Cruise usually portrays on the big screen, he always seems to pull out of a perilous situation no matter how dire it seems. In Cruise's own life, he made headlines Nov. 3 by taking about a 30% stake in a resurrected movie studio, United Artists, two months after being kicked to the curb by Paramount Pictures. The deal calls for Cruise and his producer/business partner Paula Wagner to own at least 30% of United Artists, a company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer owns and took out of the mothballs for the pair. Wagner will be the CEO of the company and Cruise will star in an unspecified number of movies and be heavily involved with producing and developing other films. The deal exemplifies the strong interest that private investors have developed for the movie business recently. Private equity firms Providence Equity Partners and Texas Pacific Group own Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Critics of the deal are wary that giving Cruise and Wagner so much responsibility without the experience could be a potential diasaster. The L.A. Times points out the two produced a film for Paramount, "Elizabethtown" last year, which lost $30 million. But Providence and TPG seem undeterred. For now, these investors see only the potential dollar signs and hope Cruise and Wagner give a performance worthy of both Hollywood and Wall Street ... — Gerald Magpily
See New York Times
See L.A. Times
Continue reading below
