Los Angeles – Tom Cruise and his producing partner are taking charge of United Artists, restoring the venerable but moribund film outfit to its roots as a Hollywood shingle run by superstars looking to control their own careers.
United Artists owner MGM announced Thursday the move to put Cruise and Paula Wagner in control of the film company founded in 1919 by Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks.
It’s poetic symmetry that United Artists, generally mothballed amid recent corporate changes at MGM after a short period as an art-house film banner, should come back in the hands of a Hollywood giant.
“The truth is that the name ‘United Artists’ has been relatively meaningless for decades. It’s just been a corporate name with no vestige of its original significance,” said critic and film historian Leon ard Maltin. “Tom Cruise is one of the most powerful stars in the world. He’s making the same move that his forebears did 85 years ago.”
The move comes after Cruise and Wagner’s fallout with Paramount Studios, which severed its 14-year producing deal with the pair in August. Sumner Redstone – chairman of Paramount’s parent company, Viacom Inc. – had blamed Cruise’s odd antics over his romance with Katie Holmes and his Scientology preaching for undermining box- office returns on the actor’s summer release, “Mission: Impossible III.”
There was little doubt that a star of Cruise’s caliber would find a haven elsewhere. After all, even at 44, Cruise still has the boyish charm and rakish grin that helped make the star of “Top Gun,” “Risky Business” and “War of the Worlds” the most durable audience draw of modern times.
The question was whether he still had the clout to maintain the same degree of control he enjoyed at Paramount, a deal that allowed him and Wagner, Cruise’s former agent and now business partner, to develop films there but left Cruise free to star in projects for other studios.
Wagner, who will be chief executive, and Cruise will have full control over United Artists’ film slate, expected to be about four films a year, according to MGM. They will be part owners of United Artists, able to make $100 million action flicks as well as lower-budget films, with Cruise free to choose among films at rival studios.
“At least there’s one artist involved with a company called United Artists,” Maltin said. For too long, he said, the company has been run “by a lot of suits.”
