After United Artists, run by Cruise and Paula Wagner was jettisoned from Paramount by Sumner Redstone for Cruise’s unacceptable behavior while promoting Mission: Impossible 3, there was a good chance that Cruise and Co could land on their feet and show everyone that they didn’t need Redstone or MGM (nyah nyah-nyah, nyah nyah…nayh).
UA came out of the gate with Lions For Lambs…which flopped.
Then, Crusie launched Valkyrie, a Nazi war movie and Germany wouldn’t let him film in their country because they viewed Scientology as a cult. That dispute was settled, but then some guys died in an on set accident. That was sad, but the film went on to get it’s release date pushed back to the brink of Oscar season when “film was damaged”, then – surprisingly – back from Oscar season to Feb 09. The beast of February, the dumping ground for little movies that might and bigger movies that won’t.
We, along with the rest of the internet, declared Valkyrie a wash and Tom Cruise’s career over.
Cruise even met with Sumner again, and Mary Parent was paid millions of dollars to go re-build MGM in UA’s absence.
Basically, Hollywood started nailing the coffin shut, and UA is trying to get out of the grave without being buried alive.
From the NYT:
In the interim Mr. Cruise, his partners at United Artists and the “Valkyrie” filmmakers are bracing for what will likely be a nine-month fight to prove their critics wrong. “We will not be daunted,” Paula Wagner, chief executive of United Artists, said last week.
During a 90-minute interview at the company’s headquarters in a Century City office tower, Ms. Wagner said she and her fellow executives were intent on overcoming negative reactions that she saw as rooted in ignorance of the process of building movie production companies.
“Anybody trying to dismiss us or write us off doesn’t understand the business,” Ms. Wagner said. She added: “Nothing is going to stop us. We are determined to make this work.”
Ok. We do know how this works, Ms. Wagner. But, let’s assume that UA is the underdog we should be rooting for. What would need to happen?
First, director Bryan Singer needs to finish Valkyrie. Several scenes still need to be shot, amazingly, though UA would have you believe these post-production pick-ups were always planned. Screen the film for someone friendly and connected so a few voices in online-world can say: “Hey, it ain’t bad.”
Second, Valkyrie needs to kick major ass in ’09. Like 300 sized ass. Lions left UA in the hole about $50 million, and Valkyrie probably costs about double that, so if you don’t make $15 million worldwide, you’re fucked. And don’t expect Europeans to flock to a Tom Cruise Nazi movie. You need to make a lot of that money at home.
Third: MORE MOVIES! Hey, why not release some small budget things that don’t have Tom Cruise in it? I’m sure Wagner and Cruise have enough A-class friends to pull some weight, maybe even go after a buzzed about script. Maybe a script written by one of the B&U contributors?
That’s three things that need to happen before we assume that UA will someday be able to stand on its own feet. Right now, telling us internet folk to just settle down and wait for them to puke up something good isn’t going to work.
Beware, United Artists!
