Tom Cruise gets funding from football team owner's firm

Tom Cruise

Turns out finding money to make movies was an easy mission for Tom Cruise.

Only days after the Mission: Impossible movie star effectively was fired by Paramount Pictures, Cruise, his film partner Paula Wagner and an investment fund run by professional football team owner Daniel Snyder has agreed to a financing package that puts Cruise back in business.

"This offers us the opportunity to work with all studios and continue doing what we were doing, but in more enhanced ways," Wagner said.

First and Goal LLC, an investment fund run by Washington Redskins owner Snyder and partners Dwight Shar and Mark Shapiro, will cover overhead and development costs for Cruise/Wagner Productions for two years with an option to renew afterward.

Financial details were undisclosed, and Wagner and others involved in the deal all declined to talk about financing.

"This is not a deal about money as much as it is about access and about our futures," Wagner said.

Wagner said Snyder and his partners gave her and Cruise an entry into arenas where previously it had none, as well as the freedom to continue making both low-budget and big-budget movies outside Hollywood's major studio system.

Shar is the chairman of US homebuilder NVR, and Shapiro is the chief executive officer of Six Flags. He was recruited to turn around the ailing theme park company by Snyder, Six Flags' chairman.

Last week Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount's parent company Viacom, said the studio would not renew Cruise/Wagner's production deal when it expired this month.

Redstone said Cruise's "recent conduct has not been acceptable." Wagner called Redstone's comments "undignified."

The war of words marked a bitter end to one of the most lucrative production alliances between a major Hollywood studio and an A-list star. Cruise's movies included many of the blockbusters of modern movie history, such as War of the Worlds, three Mission: Impossible films and Jerry Maguire.

Last week, Wagner said her company had lined up US$100 million ($158.75 million) to continue production, but she did not name names, leading many Hollywood watchers to wonder if indeed she really did have a partner waiting in the wings.

Wagner said on Monday the deal with First and Goal covers only overhead and development, and not individual film financing. She said the groups began talks in mid-August, and that it was "almost premature" to announce specific plans.

"The next step becomes financing, and those are areas that we are exploring," she said.

Cruise/Wagner has co-produced numerous big-budget movies over the years starting with 1996's original Mission: Impossible, but what is less well known is that it has also produced low-budget and independent features like 2002 drama Narc and 2003's critically acclaimed Shattered Glass.

Cruise/Wagner will now try to find a partner to distribute its films.

- REUTERS