Tom Cruise Cuts Deal with New Group
By Claire Hoffman, Times Staff Writer
12:54 PM PDT, August 28, 2006
Tom Cruise has cut a deal with a group that includes the owner of the Washington Commanders to finance the overhead costs of his film production company, sources close to the negotiations said today.
Commanders owner Daniel M. Snyder, chairman of Six Flags Inc., is said to be a leading investor in an agreement that would give Cruise less than $3 million annually to finance staff and office expenses. In exchange, Snyder and the others will have the ability to finance movies developed by Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner.
The two-year deal gives Cruise less than the $3 million a year that he reportedly turned down from Paramount Pictures to renew his longtime deal with the studio that expires Thursday.
Cruise and Wagner had been receiving an estimated $10 million annually from Paramount to cover their overhead under the soon to be expired deal.
When Cruise was publicly dismissed from Paramount by the studio's owner, Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone, last week, Wagner claimed that the team had lined up financing from hedge funds to cover the much larger cost of developing movies. The team was seeking at least $100 million, according to sources. The name of the hedge fund remains unknown and Cruise's lawyer Bertram Fields said last week there was no hedge fund deal.
Several top banking sources said they had not heard of any deal struck by Cruise with a hedge fund.
