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Sumner Redstone: Tom Cruise
built 183 days ago
Redstone is ... smart, savvy, and fiercely decisive. He can slap together a winning bid overnight, as he did to wrest Paramount from Barry Diller in 1994 and then snatching up DreamWorks in 2006. Also in 2006, he raised eyebrows with a pair of high-profile ousters: He let Tom Cruise’s development contract lapse, insisting that his public proclamations of love and proselytizing had become a liability, and fired Viacom C.E.O. Tom Freston for failing to nab MySpace, now owned by News Corp. Cruise’s development team trashed him, and Viacom’s stock dropped after Freston’s exit.
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The article ... makes it clear that Mr. Redstone retains every ounce of his considerable pride. After his ranking slipped in Vanity Fair’s New Establishment list, the executive complained four times and had his spokesman contact the magazine. Mr. Redstone repeatedly declares that while others, such as his wife, influenced his decisions to cut loose Mr. Freston and Mr. Cruise, he alone made the final call.
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Redstone asked Leslie Moonves. "Naturally, being Les, he grabbed it. Then Tom came back and said he wanted it and that created problems," Redstone said in an interview with Charlie Rose broadcast on PBS Wednesday.
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Already Cruise’s producing partner Paula Wagner called Redstone’s remarks "outrageous and disrespectful" and disputed his account of what happened during the negotiations to renew their studio pact. Not only did she claim Cruise/Wagner Productions terminated their talks with Paramount earlier in the week, but she claimed the time had come for Cruise and her to strike out on their own with an independent production deal financed to the tune of $100 million by two hedge funds. This might even be true.
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