tom cruise business partner

Paula Wagner: Tom Cruise’s Former Producing Partner Explains What A Producer Actually Does

Paula Wagner is an unfamiliar name for many film-goers, but if you watch the first three Mission:Impossible films, you’ll notice they’re made by Cruise/Wagner Productions. Wagner formed the production company with Tom Cruise in 1993. The joint venture marked Wagner’s transition from casting agent at CAA to producer. And Cruise/Wagner Productions gave Cruise more control over projects he acted in, and more of the profits.

Under an exclusive deal with Paramount Pictures, Cruise/Wagner Productions produced every one of Cruise’s films from Mission: Impossible (1996) to Valkyrie (2008). Other features made by the production company included The Others, Without Limits, Narc, Shattered Glass, Elizabethtown, and Death Race. While Cruise/Wagner closed it’s doors in 2008, after Paramount boss, Sumner Redstone, pulled the plug on his relationship with the production company, both Cruise and Wagner were established as powerful producers, with the lucrative partnership grossing more than $2.9 billion at the box office.

Since then, Wagner has produced two other Cruise projects– Jack Reacher and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back– and moved into independent projects, including Chadwick Bosman’s Marshall (2017), a well-received true story about the first black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall.

Wagner, as a result, knows how to co-ordinate the full gamut of film projects from big budget to smaller character-focused productions. In the following video by CookeOpticsTV below, she explains what the role of the film producer is.

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What Businesses Does Tom Cruise Own? Actor to Mogul Business Ventures Unveiled

Tom Cruise isn’t just a powerhouse on the silver screen; he’s also a savvy businessman with an impressive portfolio. While he’s best known for his blockbuster hits, there’s more to Cruise than meets the eye.

From his production company to his stake in various entertainment ventures, Cruise has spread his wings far beyond the realm of acting. Let’s take a peek at the business side of this Hollywood icon and discover what enterprises he’s got his hands in.

Cruise/Wagner Productions

In the heart of Hollywood’s soaring skyscrapers and star-studded Walk of Fame, Cruise/Wagner Productions stands as a testament to Tom Cruise’s entrepreneurial prowess. Founded in 1993, the production company is a partnership between Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner, a former talent agent with an equally keen eye for cinematic hits. This dynamic duo has steered the company to remarkable achievements , producing several box-office successes that have ingratiated Cruise not just as an actor but as an influential producer.

The company’s filmography is impressive, boasting titles that have become synonymous with high-octane action and compelling narratives. Mission: Impossible —a franchise that redefined the spy genre—is perhaps the brightest jewel in their crown, grossing billions globally and cementing Cruise’s status as a producer who can deliver both critical acclaim and commercial success.

While action may be their bread and butter, Cruise/Wagner Productions hasn’t shied away from investing in an array of genres, demonstrating Tom Cruise’s ability to identify and produce films that resonate with a diverse audience. From the haunting psychological drama Vanilla Sky to the historical thriller Valkyrie , the company’s versatility is evident.

Cruise and Wagner have fostered strong connections within the industry, enabling them to attract some of the most celebrated directors and A-list actors to their projects. Their knack for creating collaborative environments has not only resulted in high-quality entertainment but has also nurtured enduring relationships in the ever-evolving landscape of Hollywood.

As Cruise/Wagner Productions continues to establish its presence in the entertainment world, their ability to adapt and innovate remains key. With technology and audience preferences constantly changing, Tom Cruise’s business acumen keeps him ahead of the curve, ensuring that the company doesn’t just react to trends, but often sets them.

United Artists

Tom Cruise’s ambitions in the entertainment industry didn’t halt with the success of Cruise/Wagner Productions. In a move that showcased his deep understanding of the business, Cruise took a significant step by partnering with MGM in 2006 to resurrect the historic film studio United Artists. The legacy of United Artists, founded by cinema giants like Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, was now in the hands of one of Hollywood’s most driven actors.

Under Tom’s leadership, United Artists aimed to give artists more control and a collaborative space to create unique and compelling content. He took the creative helm, determined to steer the studio back into prominence by producing films that resonate with both critics and audiences. “Lions for Lambs” , featuring heavyweights like Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, was among the first films created under the revitalized banner.

While Cruise’s tenure with United Artists was brief, it left an indelible mark on the studio’s approach to filmmaking and business strategy. Despite stepping down from his executive role within a few years, the period marked by Cruise’s involvement brought forth critical discussions about independence and innovation in Hollywood’s dynamic ecosystem. His foray into the storied studio is yet another testament to his versatility, not just as an actor but as a filmmaker with a keen eye for both art and commerce.

United Artists also provided Tom Cruise with an avenue to further imprint his vision onto the industry, reinforcing the notion that celebrities can deftly navigate the complexities of Hollywood’s corporate side. It wasn’t just about starring in blockbusters but about nurturing a more artist-friendly environment — one where the story and the storytellers are valued components of the cinematic experience.

Tom Cruise Aviation

In his continuing pursuit of personal and professional excellence, Tom Cruise also took to the skies literally. His passion for aviation is well-known among fans and industry insiders alike. Cruise, a licensed pilot, owns a P-51 Mustang , a historic World War II fighter aircraft. Aside from the Mustang, he’s also the proud owner of a Gulfstream IV , a jet known for its luxury and speed.

Cruise’s fascination with aviation isn’t just for play; it’s an extension of his persona . He often pilots himself to film sets and has been known to engage in aerobatic maneuvers, bringing a sense of adventure to his travels. The investment in these aircraft is not only a nod to his love for flying but also speaks to his approach to business: private, efficient, and with a penchant for control.

Tom Cruise’s aviation assets stand as a testament to his commitment to his craft. He doesn’t simply play a pilot on-screen; he embodies the thrill-seeking, barrier-breaking characters that have made him a household name.

P-51 Mustang: a showpiece of aviation history and personal nostalgia.
Gulfstream IV: reflects luxury, speed, and the heights of business travel.

Aircraft ownership, for Cruise, isn’t merely a means of transport. It’s a statement —about his dedication to the craft, the value of time-saving practices in business, and his personal brand that prizes freedom and a capacity for unique experiences.

Aviation isn’t just a part of Cruise’s life; it’s an integral thread in the fabric of his being , weaving together the domains of his film career, his business ventures, and his personal aspirations. Like his United Artists initiative, Tom Cruise Aviation is yet another example of how he charts his own course, in the air and in the competitive skies of Hollywood.

Church of Scientology

While Tom Cruise’s endeavors in the entertainment and aviation sectors are well-known, his involvement with the Church of Scientology is another facet of his multifaceted life. He’s not just a member of this controversial organization but one of its most prominent advocates. His connection with Scientology has sparked curiosity and debate, but it’s evident that Cruise’s commitment is deep-rooted and personal.

Scientology’s Principles and Beliefs shape its members’ perspectives, and Cruise has often credited the Church for his successes and personal growth. The actor’s investment in the Church is more than just financial; it’s an intertwining of his life’s philosophies with the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, the Church’s founder.

Rumors have circulated that Cruise holds a significant position within the Church’s hierarchy, although these claims are often speculative. The Church’s tight-knit community values privacy, making it challenging to suss out the specifics of Cruise’s role. Regardless, his dedication to Scientology endures as a key aspect of his public persona.

The star’s association with Scientology extends beyond personal belief into the realm of business. There’s speculation that he has used his A-list status to champion Scientology-affiliated businesses. Influence and Networking within the Church could provide Cruise with unique business opportunities, though details on exact enterprises remain sparse due to the Church’s infamous secrecy.

Despite the Church’s contentious reputation, Cruise’s association with it has seemingly done little to dampen his career. In Hollywood, he’s as much a power player as ever, with the Church of Scientology accompanying him behind the scenes. It’s a testament to Cruise’s Teflon-like star power that his business interests continue to flourish amid the complexities of his spiritual affiliations.

Tom Cruise’s Real Estate Portfolio

Tom Cruise, a man known for his blockbuster smashes, also boasts a real estate portfolio as impressive as his filmography. They’ve often likened his collection of homes to the eclectic characters he’s portrayed—each property with a distinct personality and charm. Cruise’s investments span the map, signifying not just wealth but his penchant for privacy and excellence.

The Hollywood icon’s property holdings are nothing short of breathtaking. From the sprawling hills of Telluride, Colorado to the buzzing heart of New York City, Cruise’s choice in estates mirrors his adventurous spirit. His Telluride home, on the market for $39.5 million , is tucked away on over 298 acres of land, complete with a 10,000-square-foot main house that’s a monument to rustic luxury.

Down in sunny Florida, Cruise’s Clearwater apartment is strategically placed near the spiritual headquarters of the Church of Scientology. It’s reported that the building’s top floor, rumored to be his retreat, promises unobstructed views and a sanctuary from the paparazzi’s prying lenses.

Further west in Beverly Hills, the star’s former estate—a palatial spread once valued at around $30 million—vied for attention with the grandest of the golden state’s mansions. Although Cruise has since let go of this gem, the property bore witness to opulent parties and was a sterling example of extravagance.

While specifics about each property Cruise owns aren’t always public, it’s known that he has a knack for flipping his homes for a profit. Industry professionals speculate that beyond his star power, he possesses a shrewd sense of the real estate market. And with each strategic buy and sell, he cements his role not just as a leading man in films but as a savvy investor in the high-stakes world of real estate.

Tom Cruise’s business ventures are as varied and dynamic as his film career. From the skies to the silver screen and even into the realm of spirituality, he’s built an empire that mirrors his diverse interests and relentless drive. His properties aren’t just homes but investments that reflect his eye for excellence and privacy. Whether he’s in the cockpit of his P-51 Mustang or walking the halls of United Artists, Cruise’s entrepreneurial spirit is unmistakable. His deep ties with the Church of Scientology may stir up controversy, yet they’ve become an integral part of his identity. As Cruise continues to navigate the worlds of entertainment, aviation, and real estate, his ventures serve as a testament to his ambition and the breadth of his influence.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is tom cruise’s role with united artists.

Tom Cruise aims to empower artists by providing them with greater control over their projects, thereby fostering a platform for creating unique and innovative content within United Artists.

Does Tom Cruise own any aircraft?

Yes, Tom Cruise owns a vintage P-51 Mustang and a Gulfstream IV, reflecting his passion for aviation and his dedication to his personal interests and brand.

Is Tom Cruise involved with the Church of Scientology?

Tom Cruise is not only a member of the Church of Scientology but also one of its most prominent advocates, often crediting the Church for his professional successes and personal development.

What position does Tom Cruise hold in the Church of Scientology?

Cruise’s exact position within the Church of Scientology’s hierarchy remains undisclosed and is the subject of speculation due to the Church’s private nature.

Has Tom Cruise used his Church of Scientology connections in business?

While specific engagements are unverified, it is speculated that Tom Cruise has utilized his Church of Scientology network to support Scientology-affiliated businesses.

Has Cruise’s career been affected by his association with the Church of Scientology?

Despite the Church of Scientology’s controversial reputation, Tom Cruise’s career continues to prosper without any signs of being adversely impacted by his association with the Church.

Does Tom Cruise invest in real estate?

Tom Cruise possesses an extensive real estate portfolio, including properties in Telluride, New York City, Clearwater, and Beverly Hills, indicating his keen interest in real estate investment and his shrewdness in the market.

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Tom Cruise's company lands investor after split with Paramount

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Tom Cruise's production company has signed a two-year financing deal with an investment partnership after breaking ties last week with Paramount Pictures.

The deal announced Monday between Cruise/Wagner productions and First & Goal LLC — headed by Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder — will cover overhead and development, allowing Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner to run their company and make deals to produce films.

Financial terms have not been revealed, but they do not include funding for film production and distribution.

Cruise's production deal with Paramount had given the star as much as $10 million US per year for salaries, expenses and discretionary spending in exchange for first right to finance or distribute the films.

But tense negotiations broke off when Paramount offered a much lower deal closer to $2 million annually.

The dispute became public last week when Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount parent Viacom Inc.,criticized Cruise's public behaviour.

Cruise blamed for losses

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal , Redstone claimed Cruise's jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch and aggressive defence of Scientology in the past year lost Paramount $100 million US and $150 million US in ticket sales for the actor's latest film, Mission: Impossible III .

Wagner slammed Redstone last week, calling his comments "surprising" and unbusinesslike. She said it was their decision to walk away from a 14-year partnership with Paramount.

Last week, Wagner said her company had secured funding from two hedge funds, a separate arrangement from the deal with First & Goal. On Monday, she declined to comment on those deals.

First & Goal was specifically set up to invest in Cruise/Wagner, as Snyder moves from sports to entertainment along with partners Dwight Schar, chairman of homebuilder NVR Inc., and Mark Shapiro, president and CEO of Six Flags Inc., the amusement park chain where Snyder serves as chairman of the board.

Shapiro, a former ESPN entertainment executive, will oversee the Cruise/Wagner deal.

"We believe that Cruise and Wagner are a terrific investment," Shapiro said. "The track record speaks for itself."

Cruise will continue to be able to star in films produced elsewhere, just as he did under Paramount.

The spat between the star of Top Gun , War of the Worlds and the Mission Impossible movies, and Paramount is the latest example of tension between actors and executives after what Hollywood analysts are calling a down summer for film revenues.

Earlier this summer, a studio head chided Lindsay Lohan for her behaviour on a movie set in a letter leaked to the press, and an ABC deal with Mel Gibson's production company to produce a four-part series on the Holocaust was cancelled after his alleged anti-Semetic remarks during a drunk-driving arrest.

With files from the Associated Press

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group And Tom Cruise To Jointly Develop And Produce Original And Franchise Theatrical Films Starring Cruise Beginning In 2024 Under Newly Formed Strategic Partnership

January 9, 2024 ·

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group’s Co-Chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca & Pam Abdy and Tom Cruise today announced they will jointly develop and produce original and franchise theatrical films starring Cruise in 2024 under a new strategic partnership between Cruise and Warner Bros. Discovery. Cruise and his production company will have offices on the Warner Bros. Discovery lot in Burbank.

The partnership marks a return to Warner Bros. for Cruise, whose storied filmography with the studio includes Edge of Tomorrow, Rock of Ages, The Last Samurai, Eyes Wide Shut, Interview with the Vampire, Risky Business , The Outsiders , and New Line’s Magnolia .

Said De Luca and Abdy, “We are thrilled to be working with Tom, an absolute legend in the film industry. Our vision, from day one, has been to rebuild this iconic studio to the heights of its glory days, and, in fact, when we first sat down with David Zaslav to talk about joining the Warner Bros. Discovery team, he said to us, ‘We are on a mission to bring Warner Bros. back – we have the best resources, storytelling IP, and talent in the business – and we need to bring Tom Cruise back to Warner Bros!’ Today, that becomes a reality and we are one step closer to achieving our ambition. We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Tom back to Warner Bros. and look forward to bringing more of his genius to life on screen in the years ahead.”

Said Cruise, “I have great respect and admiration for David, Pam, Mike, and the entire team at Warner Bros. Discovery and their commitment to movies, movie fans, and the theatrical experience. I look forward to making great movies together!”

Tom Cruise is a global cultural icon who has made an immeasurable impact on cinema by creating some of the most memorable characters of all time. Having achieved extraordinary success as an actor, producer, and philanthropist in a career spanning over five decades, Cruise is a three-time Oscar ®  nominee whose films have earned nearly $13 billion in worldwide box office—an incomparable accomplishment.

Fueled by a lifetime goal to entertain audiences around the world, Cruise has worked over the last 40 years to produce and star in movies that stand the test of time.  As a result, he has played a leading role in numerous legendary films such as Top Gun, Jerry Maguire, Risky Business, Minority Report, Interview with the Vampire, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Rain Man, Collateral, The Last Samurai, Edge of Tomorrow, Born on the Fourth of July, The Color of Money , and the  Mission: Impossible  series, among many others. Dialogue and scenes from Cruise’s films are part of the very fabric of global culture and are regularly referred to and quoted by four generations of worldwide fans daily.

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Tom Cruise Returns To Warner Bros, Forms New Strategic Movie Partnership

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Note, this isn’t an exclusive deal, as Cruise will continue to work with Paramount, where he’s shooting Mission: Impossible 8 , and Universal, where he’s making the $200M shot-in-space movie directed by Doug Liman . Overall, Cruise doesn’t have exclusive deals at any studio. No projects at this point in time are in the works or greenlit, as it’s still early.

“We are thrilled to be working with Tom, an absolute legend in the film industry,” De Luca and Abdy said Tuesday. “Our vision, from day one, has been to rebuild this iconic studio to the heights of its glory days, and, in fact, when we first sat down with David Zaslav to talk about joining the Warner Bros Discovery team, he said to us, ‘We are on a mission to bring Warner Bros back – we have the best resources, storytelling IP, and talent in the business – and we need to bring Tom Cruise back to Warner Bros!’ Today, that becomes a reality and we are one step closer to achieving our ambition. We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Tom back to Warner Bros and look forward to bringing more of his genius to life on screen in the years ahead.”

Said Cruise: “I have great respect and admiration for David, Pam, Mike, and the entire team at Warner Bros. Discovery and their commitment to movies, movie fans, and the theatrical experience. I look forward to making great movies together!”

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Tom Cruise's producing partner leaves UA

Tom Cruise's producing partner Paula Wagner says she will leave her job as chief executive of the United Artists studio to produce projects independently.

Wagner says in a statement Wednesday that she wants to return to her true love of making movies but still believes in the vision she and Cruise have for UA, which she co-owns with Cruise.

She also says she has enjoyed working with Cruise and is proud of what the pair has accomplished in the past two years.

The office of Cruise's publicist referred calls about Wagner to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., the parent of UA.

Cruise and Wagner took over United Artists, a film studio first formed nearly 90 years ago by Hollywood actors, in November 2006.

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Mission Improbable: Tom Cruise as Mogul

By Richard Siklos

March 4, 2007

Los Angeles

ARRAYED in a glass case in the lobby of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s headquarters in Century City are contracts from the creation of the United Artists studio in 1919. The documents bear the signatures of the Tinseltown legends Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and D. W. Griffith. Also ensconced in the case is one of United Artists’ first income statements: sales of $21 million in today’s dollars, a fair sum for the early 20th century but barely enough to finance even a single low-budget film now.

Some things never change. Asked how United Artists’ early revenues compare with what it takes in today, Harry E. Sloan, chief executive of the studio’s parent company, MGM, replies: “We don’t have any yet. It’s all cost.”

If Mr. Sloan has his way, however, that will soon change. Last November, he signed the latest set of United Artists contracts with yet another Hollywood heavyweight determined to chart his own financial and creative course: Tom Cruise. Mr. Cruise and his business partner, the veteran film producer Paula Wagner, have signed on to run United Artists with what insiders describe as a relatively free hand for a term of at least five years. In exchange, MGM has granted the pair about a one-third stake in the dormant studio without asking them to invest a penny in it.

Ms. Wagner is the chief executive of UA — as the studio is commonly known — while Mr. Cruise bears no official title except, perhaps, the world’s most famous movie star. Unlike Ms. Wagner, Mr. Cruise does not draw a salary from UA, according to a person with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The idea is that his ownership stake alone will align the interests of Tom Cruise the actor with Tom Cruise the studio grandee.

“I can’t put a number on it yet,” says Bert Fields, the Hollywood rainmaker and lawyer who represents Mr. Cruise and Ms. Wagner. “I will tell you this: If their pictures succeed, it will be worth a very large amount.”

Still, in a town awash in news releases written in magic ink on fairy parchment, Hollywood does not know exactly what to make of the idea of Cruise-as-mogul — or, for that matter, how exactly the fast-moving Mr. Sloan plans to deploy UA and the deep pockets of private equity investors to yank MGM back from the brink of obscurity.

Moreover, Mr. Cruise stands at the end of a long line of creative potentates in Hollywood, including Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, Sidney Poitier, Steve McQueen and Steven Spielberg, who have tried to follow the original Chaplin-Fairbanks-Pickford blueprint by overseeing their own mini-studios. All of them experienced mixed results as they ran up against the brutal economics of a hit-and-miss industry in which independents often lack the size needed to overcome the financial vagaries of filmmaking.

Though the relationship between studios and stars has grown ever more tangled in modern Hollywood, one thing has stayed the same: what many stars most covet — along with fame and fortune — is creative autonomy from their corporate overlords. For actors like Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio, that has meant deals as independent producers that give them a stronger hand in developing their pet projects and bestow production fees and credits on them.

Until last year, the gold standard of such deals was an arrangement between Cruise/Wagner Productions and Paramount, the studio where Mr. Cruise, 44, had starred in many of his biggest pictures. But that relationship vaporized in a mushroom cloud last August, after what many critics called Mr. Cruise’s erratic behavior during his promotional tour for the spy thriller “Mission: Impossible III.”

Sumner M. Redstone, the chairman of Viacom , Paramount’s owner, contended that he had fired Mr. Cruise for “inappropriate” behavior that had hurt his studio’s bottom line. Mr. Cruise’s defenders accused Mr. Redstone of grandstanding and said that, actually, both sides had already been planning to part amicably.

Regardless, the media firestorm and scrutiny of Mr. Cruise’s career and conduct only intensified when, two months later, Mr. Cruise and Ms. Wagner landed at United Artists, which through different owners has hewed in varying degrees to its founding ideals of artistic hegemony.

The producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who worked with Mr. Cruise early in his career on the film “Top Gun,” said that the news of the move “kind of shocked Hollywood.”

Mr. Bruckheimer added: “You have a star and his producing partner actually running a studio. That hasn’t happened in I don’t know how many years.”

BEFORE it became part of MGM in 1981, United Artists spawned the “James Bond,” “Pink Panther” and “Rocky” franchises and, during one prolific run in the 1970s, won three consecutive best-picture Oscars for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Rocky” and “Annie Hall.”

A promotional reel that Mr. Sloan shows investors in MGM’s penthouse screening room makes plain that many of the best-known titles in the current MGM film library — from “The Apartment” to “West Side Story” — were United Artists releases.

The lore is not lost on Mr. Cruise. At a recent party, Peter Bart, the editor in chief of Variety, greeted Mr. Cruise and mentioned that for a two-year period in the 1980s he, too, had been a senior executive at United Artists. “I know,” Mr. Cruise replied instantly, and proceeded to list all the movies made under Mr. Bart’s tenure, Mr. Bart recalled in an interview.

Discussing their fledgling plans to revive one of the more storied names in filmdom — and considering the maelstrom in which the whole idea was hatched — United Artists’ new chieftains acknowledge in interviews that they have stitched together their business plan on the fly because, they say, they are in a hurry and have a lot to prove.

As a result, UA in its new incarnation is a basket of contradictions and question marks: it’s a filmmaking enterprise ultimately owned by a studio, MGM, that had only recently vowed to get out of that line of work to focus on the less risky and more predictable — albeit far less sexy — business of marketing and distribution. Moreover, it’s a small studio co-managed by one of the world’s ultimate “big movie” movie stars.

“UA is in the shadows here,” Ms. Wagner insists. At the new studio, she adds, “It’s the film that’s the star.”

Everyone involved cautions that it is still early and that the studio’s course is not fully set; its first production, a political thriller called “Lions for Lambs,” directed by Robert Redford and starring Mr. Redford, Mr. Cruise and Meryl Streep, is being shot now and is scheduled for a November release. If all goes as planned, United Artists will announce as soon as this week a debt financing of $400 million to $500 million to finance its first slate of pictures, backing that includes $100 million from MGM itself.

Beyond saying that the plan is to live up to the United Artists legacy of making talent feel like partners rather than employees, and a goal of releasing four to six films a year distributed by MGM, Ms. Wagner says that little else is set in stone.

“There are no absolutes,” she says over brunch at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. “Under no circumstances am I making any proclamations or declarations — we’re new; we’re 100 days here.”

Ms. Wagner carries herself with the poise of someone who once worked as a theater actress and a talent agent before becoming Mr. Cruise’s collaborator and the public face of his entrepreneurial and filmmaking ambitions. Mr. Cruise declined to be interviewed for this article, because, Ms. Wagner says, he prefers that she speak publicly about their mutual business interests.

As far as those first 100 days go, Ms. Wagner says their new company is on track: it is hiring new employees, has “Lions for Lambs” under way, has just optioned a hot book, “The Birthday Party” by Stanley N. Alpert, and is taking meetings and pitches all over town. The plan is to make films of varying budgets and genres. But anything that is projected to cost more than about $60 million needs a green light from MGM.

Mr. Cruise is not obligated to appear in any UA films, though the incentive of owning a large chunk of the print, as well as the bragging rights and perquisites that entails, is meant to be a strong motivator for him to ply his “day job — or night job,” as Ms. Wagner puts it, at UA.

In the case of “Lions for Lambs,” MGM is providing the film’s $35 million budget. Mr. Cruise, Mr. Redford and Ms. Streep have all deferred their usual upfront fees or percentages of gross revenue in exchange for cumulatively splitting half of the film’s profit with UA.

Ms. Wagner would not discuss the numbers, joking that she “never discusses her budgets or her age.” But she said that the structure was typical of how she envisions UA: as a trusted partner rather than as a big studio with arcane accounting that prompts agents to insist that their most bankable clients are paid up front.

Of course, Ms. Wagner is now something of an expert in the perks and pitfalls of life at a big studio. All she needs to do is flash back to last fall, to the Cruise/Wagner Productions offices on the Paramount lot. Cruise/Wagner was initially fueled by the adrenalin of Mr. Cruise’s star power in the early 1990s, when he anchored hits like “A Few Good Men,” “The Firm” and “Days of Thunder.”

Over nearly 15 years, Cruise/Wagner produced 13 films, aided in the latter years by a plush overhead deal from Paramount in which Paramount provided office space and underwrote their projects in exchange for a first crack at bringing them to the screen. The result of that collaboration was films approaching a gross of $3 billion at the box office, with Cruise/Wagner having particular success in shepherding the lucrative “Mission: Impossible” franchise to the big screen for Paramount.

But last year Viacom was in transition, and the studio’s new overseers, the Paramount chief executive, Brad Grey and the Viacom chief, Tom Freston — like other Hollywood chieftains — believed that they were spending too much money on too many co-producers. Where Cruise/Wagner was concerned, they reasoned that the studio could just as easily work out a deal with Mr. Cruise to shoot another “Mission: Impossible” installment by hiring him and Ms. Wagner as producers, without subsidizing their company.

What’s more, Cruise/Wagner’s track record was strong with films starring Mr. Cruise, but those that did not feature the actor — pictures like “The Others,” “Elizabethtown,” “Shattered Glass” and “Narc” — had “mixed” commercial success, according to an executive with knowledge of the discussions.

“Any producer who makes more than one or two films in their lifetime — with the exception perhaps of Tom Cruise — has a ‘mixed’ thing,” Ms. Wagner says when asked if that was a fair assessment of her partnership with Mr. Cruise. Viacom declined to comment.

As the mood in Hollywood changed and Paramount offered a greatly reduced production deal, Ms. Wagner says that she and Mr. Cruise decided that it was time for a change. Following the lead of other successful producers like Ivan Reitman and Joel Silver, they wanted to tap into the new Wall Street and hedge fund money flowing into Hollywood.

Under these new business arrangements, big-name producers can control nearly every aspect of filmmaking — even the most exalted perk, the ability to greenlight a picture. Big studios remain crucial to a film’s success under this new model, but largely as marketers and distributors.

ONE Wednesday morning last August, Mr. Redstone, in an interview that appeared on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, announced that he had fired Mr. Cruise.

Mr. Cruise’s antics, Mr. Redstone contended, had cost him money.

Indeed, while “Mission: Impossible III” grossed close to $134 million at the box office domestically, it fell $81 million shy of the previous installment. And the roughly $70 million that Mr. Cruise took home as his share of the film’s worldwide receipts meant that he probably earned more than Paramount did on the picture, said an executive with direct knowledge of the film’s financial results. Ms. Wagner and Viacom would not confirm that calculation.

Mr. Redstone’s comments came in the wake of Mr. Cruise’s statements about his faith in Scientology, his public declarations of love for his girlfriend — and now wife — Katie Holmes, and his crusade against prescription antidepressants. Ms. Wagner bristles when she recalls the episode. “Tom Cruise, in 10 months, for Paramount Pictures, generated just under $1 billion,” she says, referring to the box office take of his last two films, “Mission: Impossible III” and “War of the Worlds.”

Mr. Cruise’s so-called firing was extraordinary in Hollywood — and nothing personal, Mr. Redstone has said in subsequent interviews. Mr. Cruise’s camp says that his contract had merely expired and that he was already planning to move on. That issue aside, the incident raised a salient question in filmdom: had the pay for talent grown out of kilter with the financial realities of the marketplace?

In the uncertain days that followed, Cruise/Wagner announced a deal to develop films for a company backed by Daniel Snyder, the investor who owns the Washington Redskins, but it was hardly the big move that showed the world that they were unfazed. Friends of Mr. Cruise, meanwhile, advised him to focus less on his production business and more on picking smart follow-ups to “Mission: Impossible III” so he could put the bad publicity behind him.

FOR Harry Sloan, meanwhile, the raging headlines about Mr. Cruise gave him a flash of inspiration. After taking charge of MGM in 2005 at the behest of its main investors, Providence Equity Partners and the Texas Pacific Group, Mr. Sloan set out to revive the company, which also counts Sony and Comcast as investors. The private equity firms had initially backed the Sony Corporation’s $5 billion takeover of MGM from the investor Kirk Kerkorian in 2004, with the strategy that MGM would be largely shuttered and its 4,000-film library fed through the distribution pipeline of Sony Pictures.

But the investors, unhappy with MGM’s performance under the Sony strategy, changed course after a year and installed Mr. Sloan, an MGM director, as the studio’s chief executive. Mr. Sloan, an entertainment lawyer turned entrepreneur, founded SBS Broadcasting in Europe in the early 1990s and sold it three years ago for $2.6 billion. The venture made him a tidy fortune, an undisclosed portion of which he has reinvested in MGM.

In addition to moving the distribution of MGM’s home video business to 20th Century Fox, Mr. Sloan wanted to shore up MGM’s own television channels around the world by cutting deals with various small and independent producers. Mr. Sloan, who once served as chairman of Lion’s Gate Entertainment, also wanted to revive MGM’s movie-making capabilities, but without the expense of layers of creative executives and producers.

In an interview, Mr. Sloan estimated that big studios spent as much as $100 million apiece annually on films that are never released, and he called Hollywood’s film development deals “an enormous welfare project” for writers, agents and producers.

Mr. Sloan considered selling the UA brand name because it was doing nothing more for MGM than gathering dust in a closet. But when he saw Mr. Cruise’s broad smile flashed across the evening news during the Paramount dust-up, he decided to give him and Ms. Wagner the UA shingle to hang.

“You can’t lose,” Mr. Sloan says of the deal with Mr. Cruise and Ms. Wagner. “There are plenty of things I’m doing that have plenty of risk and downside. This is not one of them.”

So while the news media buzzed with speculation about whether Mr. Cruise’s career would be dented or even destroyed, Harry Sloan placed calls to Mr. Fields, the lawyer. He also phoned Mr. Cruise’s longtime representatives at Creative Artists Agency, whose co-chairman, Rick Nicita, is Ms. Wagner’s husband. (Ms. Wagner herself had been Mr. Cruise’s agent at the firm before becoming his production partner.)

Knowing that Mr. Cruise and Ms. Wagner would need to exit the Paramount lot in a hurry, Mr. Sloan offered them office space on the 11th floor of the MGM tower. Over the next two months, the three conducted a series of private meetings at Mr. Sloan’s office and home that involved contingents of lawyers and agents.

What emerged was what Ms. Wagner describes as a hybrid between a studio and a production company. Rather than the overhead deal they had at Paramount, Mr. Sloan proposed establishing an autonomous studio within a larger studio — a structure akin to the relationship that Mr. Spielberg’s studio, DreamWorks, now has with Paramount, but with real ownership attached.

“We all answer to somebody about something,” Ms. Wagner says. “It’s really the number of people you answer to. In this structure, Tom and I really answer to ourselves.”

According to people involved in the talks, the question of whether Mr. Cruise, whom Mr. Sloan did not know previously, was past his prime or a loose cannon came up, particularly among MGM’s private equity investors.

But Mr. Sloan concluded that Mr. Cruise was still a bankable star and filmmaker. Kelvin L. Davis, a partner at Texas Pacific who serves on MGM’s executive committee, said he came away from his initial meeting with Mr. Cruise impressed by his business acumen and his curiosity about the financial goals of his prospective backers.

“One of the things Tom said to me that impressed me early on,” Mr. Davis said, “was that he thought his artistic performance, his acting abilities, were best displayed when he felt a real sense of partnership with those who he was doing business with.”

After weeks of preliminary negotiations, Mr. Cruise met with Mr. Sloan in his office for the first time last October. During a meeting that lasted four hours, Mr. Cruise did not jump off the bronze sofa he was sitting on. Rather, he listened intently as Mr. Sloan proposed giving UA some of MGM’s franchise films to produce and suggested that its first project be the next “Terminator.”

Mr. Sloan recalls that Mr. Cruise responded, “Let’s not do something derivative” for a first film. “Let’s do something original.”

Since then, a partnership has been struck and Mr. Sloan has been to Mr. Cruise’s gala wedding in Italy. Mr. Sloan says he is convinced that Mr. Cruise has both the movie-making ability and the work ethic to make a success of UA. “He is driven, professional and a total perfectionist,” Mr. Sloan says. “I thought he was me in a lot of ways.”

Mr. Sloan calls his venture with Mr. Cruise an “interesting experiment” that he might extend to other dormant MGM brands like Orion Pictures. He also says that other artists could unite with Mr. Cruise and Ms. Wagner as equity owners of UA.

ONE of the lingering questions about UA is how well Ms. Wagner will fare in putting out four to six films a year, when she and Mr. Cruise previously averaged just one movie a year as producers aligned with Paramount. It is also unclear how Mr. Cruise will manage his loyalties and time among the many professional roles he juggles both inside and outside of UA. Last month, for instance, the Hollywood trades reported that he plans to make a comedy with Ben Stiller as the co-star at 20th Century Fox.

Mr. Cruise isn’t saying. But the answer to questions about his commitment may lie in another meeting he and Ms. Wagner held in Mr. Sloan’s office just a few days before the deal was announced last November.

The centerpiece of the meeting was a four-hour pow-wow with Jonathan M. Nelson, the chief executive of Providence Equity, whose 29 percent stake in MGM makes it the studio’s single largest shareholder. According to two people who would not agree to be named because it was a private meeting, Mr. Nelson was there to scope out Mr. Cruise’s intentions for UA before signing off on the deal.

At the meeting, Mr. Nelson declined an invitation to read the script for “Lions for Lambs,” these people said. But he was reassured by other things he saw. Like Mr. Sloan, Mr. Nelson was impressed by Mr. Cruise’s sense of purpose and the fact that the star had never responded publicly to Mr. Redstone’s lambasting. Instead, it became clear that Mr. Cruise had chosen a different way to fire back at the Viacom chairman: he was determined to let his results be his revenge.

An article last Sunday about United Artists misidentified one of the investors in its parent company, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is the Texas Pacific Group, not Thomas H. Lee Partners. The article also referred incorrectly to the title of UA’s first film under its new managers in two references. It will be “Lions for Lambs,” not “Lambs for Lions.”

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Tom Cruise teams with Warner Bros. in a deal to make new movies

Tom Cruise during a break while shooting a "Mission: Impossible" movie.

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Tom Cruise is headed to Burbank.

The actor and producer has reached a development and production deal with Warner Bros. to create original and franchise films starring Cruise, the studio said Tuesday.

As a result of the deal, a coup for Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group Co-Chairs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, Cruise and his production company will have offices on Warner Bros. Discovery’s Burbank lot.

Specific projects under the partnership have not yet been announced, but the pact is not exclusive or structured like a typical first-look deal. Cruise will continue to lead his existing franchises, such as the long-running “Mission: Impossible” movie series, with Paramount Pictures. (The next “Mission: Impossible” installment is scheduled for a 2025 release date.)

“We are thrilled to be working with Tom, an absolute legend in the film industry,” De Luca and Abdy said in a statement. “We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Tom back to Warner Bros. and look forward to bringing more of his genius to life on screen in the years ahead.”

Cruise’s past projects with Warner Bros. have included films such as “Interview With the Vampire” and “Risky Business,” “The Last Samurai” and “Eyes Wide Shut.” His most recent project with the studio, “Edge of Tomorrow,” was released a decade ago.

“I have great respect and admiration for [CEO] David [Zaslav], Pam, Mike, and the entire team at Warner Bros. Discovery and their commitment to movies, movie fans, and the theatrical experience,” Cruise said. “I look forward to making great movies together!”

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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and Tom Cruise

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Tom Cruise Signs Deal With Warner Bros. to Develop and Produce Original and Franchise Films

By Brent Lang

Executive Editor

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Tom Cruise has his next mission.

The ageless action star signed a new deal to develop and produce theatrical films with Warner Bros. Discovery. These movies will be a mix of original productions and franchise fare and will star Cruise, the company said in a release touting the deal. As part of what is being billed as a new “strategic partnership,” Cruise and his production company will have offices on the Warner Bros. Discovery lot in Burbank.

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“I have great respect and admiration for David, Pam, Mike, and the entire team at Warner Bros. Discovery and their commitment to movies, movie fans, and the theatrical experience,” Cruise said. “I look forward to making great movies together!”

Cruise’s upcoming films include the eighth installment of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise for Paramount, as well as an upcoming Universal action movie from “Edge of Tomorrow” director Doug Liman that will see the actor become “the first civilian to do a spacewalk” outside of the International Space Station. He most recently appeared in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” which was a box office disappointment, as well as 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” which was the biggest hit of his career.

De Luca and Abdy previously ran MGM, leaving the studio after its sale to Amazon. At Warner Bros. they have set up “Alto Knights,” a mob movie with Robert De Niro, as well as “Flowervale Street,” a thriller with Anne Hathaway.

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What tom cruise’s new deal really means.

How the star’s Warner Bros. deal came together — and why it is both more and less than it appears.

By Kim Masters

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Last February, David Zaslav made his way to CAA’s offices, accompanied by his film-studio chiefs, Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy. The delegation gathered in agent Maha Dakhil’s office, where Kevin Huvane and Joel Lubin were in attendance. Also there was a prized client: Tom Cruise .

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Why Tom Cruise joining forces with Warner Bros. is a bigger deal than you think

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Tom Cruise has joined Warner Bros. to develop and produce feature films together. Sounds like a boring behind-the-scenes detail about film production, but it’s actually quite a significant move in the career of the world’s biggest action star.

Cruise, 61, who rose to fame in the 80s for starring in blockbusters like 1986’s Top Gun has gained a reputation in the 21st century as the last of the great action movie stars for his commitment to death-defying stunts and propping up the Mission Impossible series alongside hits like 2022’s sequel Top Gun: Maverick .

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For those in the know, they’ll be aware that Cruise has done a lot of these films through his own production company Cruise/Wagner Productions, started in 1993. Through Cruise/Wagner, the actor has produced all of the Mission Impossible films alongside playing the lead role, alongside the Jack Reacher series and other films.

Cruise is one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood and his films have grossed over $13 billion (nearly €12 billion) worldwide. Many of his most successful films have been produced alongside Paramount Pictures as a distributor. Paramount ended their 14-year relationship with Cruise in 2006 after Mission: Impossible III , but reunited in 2011 for the next film in the series, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol .

The announcement that Cruise has now tied his mast to the Warner Bros. ship is therefore a big boon for the production studio. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has said he wanted to work with more top talent both in front and behind the camera, and you can’t get much bigger than Cruise.

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group’s Co-Chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy said: “We are thrilled to be working with Tom, an absolute legend in the film industry. Our vision, from day one, has been to rebuild this iconic studio to the heights of its glory days”.

De Luca and Abdy continued that when they first sat down with Zaslav, he told them: “We are on a mission to bring Warner Bros. back – we have the best resources, storytelling IP, and talent in the business – and we need to bring Tom Cruise back to Warner Bros!”

Cruise himself said that “I have great respect and admiration for David, Pam, Mike, and the entire team at Warner Bros. Discovery and their commitment to movies, movie fans, and the theatrical experience,” in a Warner Bros. press release. “I look forward to making great movies together!” he continued.

Zaslav's tenure as CEO of Warner Bros. has not been without controversy. Particularly for his decisions to slash budgets, removal of TV series from streaming ( Westworld ) and shelving films altogether ( Batgirl).

Batgirl movie shelved by Warner Bros.: a potential death knell for the superhero genre?

It’s unclear as of now how this deal between Cruise and Warner Bros. will manifest and what films will follow.

The actor-studio deal could also have wider ramifications around industry rumours that Warner Bros. and Paramount are considering a merger . Zaslav met Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish in December about a potential deal between the $29 billion (€26 billion) and $10 billion (€9 billion) companies, respectively.

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What Tom Cruise’s Warner Bros. deal means for ‘Mission: Impossible’ and ‘Top Gun’ franchises

Tom Cruise poses on the red carpet at the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One U.S. premiere held at the RoseTheater, at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall. Photo credit: Derrick Salters/WENN via Reuters Connect

Warner Brothers has announced a strategic partnership with Tom Cruise that will bring the star’s production company to the studio lot this year. What does this deal actually mean? And where does that leave Cruise’s relationship with Paramount Pictures? Kim Masters and Matt Belloni investigate.

A strategic what? The studio’s announcement was sparse on details, offering little insight into the partnership. “What is Warner Brothers actually getting out of this? It's called a strategic partnership, but this is not a first look deal. It is not an exclusive arrangement,” Belloni clarifies. “Tom Cruise can make whatever movie he wants for whatever studio he wants. And we're not sure what the money is either.”

Star power? Masters reported that Cruise is looking to launch a franchise, and Belloni adds that the actor’s filmography at Warner Brothers may be the key to what follows. “There's all these Warner Brothers movies that Tom Cruise made from the ‘80s and ‘90s. Everything from Risky Business to more recently Edge of Tomorrow , which you know, there has been some talk about a prequel to that movie,” Belloni speculates.

Tension at Paramount? Cruise is still working on the eighth installment in the Mission: Impossible series, but the underwhelming box office performance of Dead Reckoning Part One may have affected the actor’s relationship with Paramount. “I think it got a little strained when Mission: Impossible Seven didn't perform that well. And they're going to end up losing maybe $30 million or more on that film,” Masters predicts.

What about Top Gun 3 ? Belloni broke the news that Top Gun 3 is in the works, but Masters believes the actor’s strained relationship with Paramount could slow things down. “I don't think he would rush to do Top Gun since I think he's become quite annoyed with Paramount management pushing him to put things on the streamer and things that don't happen when you're Tom Cruise, so he's felt let down by them,” Masters says.

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Who Is Elsina Khayrova? 5 Things to Know About Tom Cruise’s Girlfriend

Tom Cruise has a new love interest.

After Cruise and Elsina Khayrova made their public debut in December, a source exclusively told Us Weekly that the pair have been quietly dating for “a while now.”

“They’re very happy,” the insider told Us . “And Tom’s extremely confident about it working out for the long term.”

The source shared that the pair met through mutual friends in London. “What started as a basic friendship quickly turned into something more special,” the insider added.

As for where Cruise’s eldest children, Isabella and Connor, stand with the relationship, the source told Us that they “think Elsina is great and are so happy to see that their dad has love in his life again.” (Cruise shares both children with ex-wife Nicole Kidman . He also shares a daughter with ex-wife Katie Holmes .)

So who is Khayrova? Here’s everything to know about his girlfriend.

Tom Cruise s Dating History Through the Years Nicole Kidman Katie Holmes and More 765

Related: Look Back at Tom Cruise's Dating History

1. where was elsina khayrova born.

Khayrova was born in Russia but now lives in London. Earlier this month, she was spotted with Cruise at a party in London’s Grosvenor Square.

“They’ve hung out at Tom’s favorite private members club and regularly enjoy afternoon tea and gourmet dinners out in London,” the source told Us .

2. Did Elsina Khayrova model?

Khayrova formerly modeled for brands including Graff. In 2015, the luxury diamond jeweler shared a snap via Instagram of her wearing a pair of their earrings.

3. Who is Elsina Khayrova’s father?

Elsina is the daughter of Rinat Khayrova , who is a member of the Russian Military Police.

Tom Cruise Through the Years Top Gun Maverick

Related: Tom Cruise Through the Years

4. has elsina khayrova been in a relationship.

Elsina filed for divorce from Russian oligarch Dmitry Tsvetkov in 2022. The pair separated two years prior after over a decade of marriage. In December, Tsvetkov weighed in on his ex’s new relationship with Cruise when he spoke to the Daily Mail.

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“Irrespective of whoever she’s with, Tom Cruise or anybody else, they should be aware that she likes the finer things in life and has expensive and luxurious tastes,” he said. “Tom should keep his eyes and wallet wide open.”

He continued: “I’m happy for her, I wish her all the best.”

5. Does Elsina Khayrova have children?

She reportedly shares two children with ex Tsvetkov. In September, Elsina posted a sweet Instagram birthday tribute to her daughter Eva, whom she refers to as her “best friend.”

Tom Cruise’s Girlfriend History: From Nicole Kidman to Katie Holmes to Today

Tom Cruise has had a high-profile love life ever since launching his acting career in the '80s. Here's a complete breakdown of the 'Mission: Impossible' star's romantic history.

Tom Cruise is an actor, famous for films like Top Gun , Jerry Maguire , and Mission: Impossible .
He’s been married to Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes.

Tom Cruise ‘s love life has been closely followed for decades, ever since making his breakthrough in the 1983 classic Risky Business . His romantic history consists of three famous marriages (all of which ended, coincidentally, when his wives were 33 years old) and a string of other high-profile romances. But between 2012-2020, Tom seemingly pumped the brakes on public romances.

However, there was renewed interest in the love life of one of Hollywood’s most famous bachelors after a new report surfaced in December 2020. It claimed that Tom was dating his co-star Hayley Atwell from Mission: Impossible 7 . In June 2022, another report came out that the pair broke up . In 2023, Tom reportedly moved on with model Elsina Khayrova . We have more information on that below — including Tom’s many other romances since the ’80s.

Melissa Gilbert

Melissa Gilbert , 59, who played Laura Ingalls on the NBC series Little House on the Prairie , claimed that she dated Tom in the early 1980’s. This was at the very beginning of his career! “Actually, when I dated him he was Tom Mapother still. It was when he first moved to Los Angeles and I think I was 16, maybe, or 17?,” Melissa said on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2017.

“I did not have sex with him,” Laura added. “We made out, but, honestly, there was no sex. He was a good kisser. But, you know, he was, like, a struggling, starving actor. I actually bought him his first set of dishes.” Melissa even reminisced on her friendship/past relationship with her fellow “Brat Pack” pal, Tom, in a throwback Instagram post shared in Oct. 2019.

Heather Locklear

Heather Locklear , 61, was never Tom’s girlfriend, but she did go on one (sort of) date with him. It didn’t go well, according to her recollection. The Melrose Place star explained in a 2013 interview on Chelsea Lately that they had both “auditioned for something” together, back when Tom “didn’t have friends” in Hollywood in the early ’80s. So, they went dancing.

“You know in ‘Risky Business’ where he does that dance in his underwear and does the splits? We were dancing at a club and he went into that. He starting doing the splits,” Heather said. “You just kind of stand there and don’t know what to do. Do you dance around him? So, I was like, ‘I’ll just sit down and you can.'”

“And that was the only date you had?,” Chelsea Handler then asked Heather, to which the actress said, “I think so.” Tom and Heather are pictured above together in 1981.

Rebecca De Mornay

Rebecca de Mornay and Tom played lovers in Tom’s breakthrough film, Risky Business , which came out in 1983. Their on-screen chemistry turned out to be real! Although Rebecca joked that Tom was “extremely annoying” at first, she admitted, “He came to grow on me because we wound up together for two and a half years after that film” in a 2018 interview with Celebrity Page .

Tom Cruise famously made Cher ‘s “Top 5” lovers list, which she revealed on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2013. “I had just the greatest lovers ever. Not a long list. It’s just a good list,” the 77-year-old singer had said.

Cher explained how she and Tom connected in a separate interview. “A bunch of people who were dyslexic were invited to the White House, and Tom and I are both dyslexic. We didn’t go out till way later, but there definitely was a connection there,” Cher told the Mail on Sunday in 2018. She added, “Though I don’t get what he does, that whole Scientology thing. I can’t understand it so I just… don’t.”

Mimi Rogers

It was during this relationship that Tom infamously joined the Church of Scientology, which he is a prominent figure in to this day. When Tom met actress Mimi Rogers , 67, she had been a few years divorced from Scientologist Jim Rogers . “I met her at a dinner party about a year ago, when I was developing Top Gun. She was dating a friend, and, uh, I thought she was extremely bright,” Tom recalled in a 1986 interview with Rolling Stone .

However, Mimi had a conflicting story. “I wasn’t seeing anybody, he wasn’t seeing anybody, and they thought, ‘These people should be going out with somebody — let’s see if they want to go out with each other.’ And we said, ‘Aw, what the heck. OK’,” Mimi told the Sun Sentinel in 1987.

Tom sounded smitten in another Rolling Stone interview, which was published mere days before his split from Mimi was announced in 1990. “I’d never been in love before. Since I’ve been with her, it’s opened me up a lot. I think it’s helped me be a better actor. We live a lot of life together. We share everything,” he gushed, later adding, “I care about my wife more than anything in the world. She’s my best friend. I just really like being with her, you know? I love her.” The divorce was finalized in February 1990, three years after they got married.

Nicole Kidman

Tom Cruise moved on to his next marriage, which was with Moulin Rouge! star Nicole Kidman , 55. They met on the set of their movie Days of Thunder , in which they played lovers, in 1990. By the end of the year, they were husband and wife. Tom and Nicole adopted two children amid their 11-year marriage : Isabella in 1992, and Connor in 1994.

During the marriage, Tom and Nicole also filmed another movie together, Eyes Wide Shut , in 1999. Nicole even looked back at their time filming together in a rare interview in Oct. 2020, telling the New York Times , “We were happily married through that. We would go go-kart racing after those scenes. We’d rent out a place and go racing at three in the morning. I don’t know what else to say. Maybe I don’t have the ability to look back and dissect it. Or I’m not willing to.”

Nicole famously never joined Tom’s Church of Scientology, which even their children went on to be active members in. Tom and Nicole’s split was announced in Feb. 2001, and Tom filed for divorce two days later. To this day, the exes have minimal interactions with one another. “Tom has had little to no contact with Nicole in the 18 years since being married and that is fine by him,” a source close to Tom EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife . “He really does not miss her much at all.”

Penélope Cruz

Photo by: Henry Lamb/Photo Wire/STAR MAX, Inc. copyright 2002ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Telephone/Fax: (212) 995-1196 6/17/02 Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz at the premiere of "Minority Report". (NYC) (Star Max via AP Images)

Tom took a break from the married life and started dating Penélope Cruz , 49, whom he met on the set of the movie Vanilla Sky in 2000. They enjoyed a three-year relationship, which the former couple’s reps confirmed ended in 2004. “They remain good friends and still talk often. There is no other person involved,” Penelope’s spokesperson told PEOPLE at the time.

Katie Holmes

Enter Katie Holmes , who to date remains one of Tom’s most famous exes. Ironically, Katie , 44, she once told Seventeen Magazine in 2004 that she “used to think that [she] was going to marry Tom Cruise,” which didn’t turn out to just be wishful thinking. The two came together the very next year.

Katie and Tom’s first public appearance as lovers happened in April of 2005. Tom was with the Dawson’s Creek star in Rome, where he was visiting to collect his David di Donatello Award for lifetime achievement. The very next month, Tom was jumping on Oprah Winfrey ‘s couch and proclaiming that he’s “in love” (to which Oprah said, “The boy is gone”).

The relationship quickly advanced. When Katie stepped onto the Batman Begins premiere in June of 2005, the actress revealed that she’s converting to Scientology (Tom’s religion) and her engagement to Tom was announced that very same month. By October, the couple was expecting, and in April of 2006 they welcomed their first child together, a daughter named Suri .

Katie and Tom tied the knot in Italy in Nov. 2006, and all seemed happy until June of 2012, when Katie filed for divorce. A settlement for custody of Suri was decided on a month later. A year afterwards, Tom admitted that he “didn’t expect” that divorce in an interview with German television network ProSieben.

Katie reflected on the time after the divorce in an April 2020 interview with InStyle . “That time was intense. It was a lot of attention, and I had a little child on top of it. We had some funny moments out and about in public. So many people I didn’t know became my friends and helped us out, and that’s what I love about the city,” she said.

Hayley Atwell

Tom reportedly started dating Hayley Atwell — whom you may have seen playing Peggy Carter in the Captain America movies — in 2020, according to a report from The Sun that surfaced in Dec. of that year. Hayley and Tom filmed Mission 7: Impossible together amid the pandemic.

“Tom and Hayley hit it off from day one,” a source told The Sun , who added, “Lockdown, and all the difficulties that came with it, brought them even closer and they’ve become fairly inseparable.” Tom and Hayley did not confirm this report, but he hasn’t confirmed any romances since his marriage to Katie, and on June 12, 2022, it was reported he and Hayley had split . It was the second reported split since back in Sept. 2021, they reportedly also called it quits but reconciled a short time later.

“Tom and Hayley’s relationship was genuine,” a source told The Sun . “In spite of some rumours to the contrary, it was never just for the cameras. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked out for them. They get on really well, and have fantastic chemistry, which is why they decided to quietly give the relationship another try earlier this year.”

Elsina Khayrova

In mid-2023, multiple outlets reported that Tom had quietly started dating the model and socialite.

“They’re very happy,” a source told Us Weekly in December 2023. “And Tom’s extremely confident about it working out for the long term. Tom is going into 2024 totally energized, excited and feeling healthier and happier than he has in years. This is a very special time for him, and having a serious relationship in his life that he can build on is the icing on the cake.”

Entertainment | ‘Risky Business’ at 40: Tom Cruise’s…

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Entertainment, entertainment | ‘risky business’ at 40: tom cruise’s chicago-made movie has even more to say now — about inequality, about the north shore.

Steve Schapiro/Warner Bros.

Rebecca De Mornay and Tom Cruise are Lana and Joel in the movie "Risky Business" in 1983.

Warner Bros.

After borrowing his father's Porsche, Tom Cruise's Joel tries to stop it from rolling into Lake Michigan in "Risky Business" in 1983.

Valerie Macon/Getty Images

Director Paul Brickman, actress Rebecca De Mornay and producer Jon Avnet attend an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science screening of "Risky Business" in 2013 in Hollywood, California.

On the North Shore of Chicago, there are two homes firmly enmeshed in Hollywood lore. I’m likely not telling you anything you didn’t know. Both were in John Hughes films: There’s the “Home Alone” house of Winnetka, a landmark so well known it’s recognized by Google Maps and has its own Lego set; and there’s the Highland Park home of Cameron in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” a glass sandwich by A. James Speyer, a Mies van der Rohe protégé and former Art Institute curator of 20th-century art.

As a teenager, though, I mostly wanted to live on Linden Avenue, also in Highland Park. This home wasn’t glass and steel, and I certainly didn’t know then that it was a real house in a fancy suburb of Chicago. It was more like the Brady homestead, but classier. Palatial , definitely. Big front lawn. Tons of green. Lots of shade. Porsche in the driveway.

Tom Cruise lived there in “Risky Business,” released 40 years ago this month.

Unless they saw Francis Ford Coppola’s semi-successful adaptation of “The Outsiders,” which came out a few months earlier, Americans had never heard of Tom Cruise yet. I didn’t sneak into “Risky Business” a couple of times that August (then once or twice more that September) because “Risky Business” starred some guy named Tom Cruise. Looking back, I doubt that I even snuck in so often because it was a teen sex fantasy.

“Risky Business,” then and now, is an indictment of privilege, and of somehow keeping the uglier world at bay long enough to buy your way into a kind of imperviousness. Except — and here’s what I think I responded to — it’s funny and confident and cool and all of its points about the spoils of capitalism get disguised inside a dream of opulence. It appears to affirm the early Reagan years as ripe for opportunity while, with a much deeper subtlety, undercuts places like the North Shore as chilly incubators of inequality.

No wonder, many decades later, Chicago prefers to see Hughes as its cultural heritage while, in those same conversations, the city rarely mentions Paul Brickman’s “Risky Business.”

Ironically, 40 years ago, released the first week of August, made for a paltry $6 million and shot entirely in the Chicago area, “Risky Business” debuted at No. 3; the second most popular film was “Return of the Jedi,” still going after three months, while the first most popular was “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” written by John Hughes. “Risky Business” was more of a slow burn, a word-of-mouth hit that lingered into November. “Sixteen Candles,” Hughes’ directorial debut, started filming in Evanston and Highland Park that same summer, and later, after “Ferris Bueller,” “Home Alone,” “The Breakfast Club” and others, the North Shore became an American image of suburban comfort.

Minus, of course, the harshness revealed just a year earlier by “Risky Business” (and a few years earlier than that by “Ordinary People,” based and shot around Lake Forest).

Not that everyone saw this criticism of the Reagan Years in Year 2 of the Reagan Years. David Denby wrote in a New York Magazine review that “Risky Business” played as “openly corrupt.” Dave Kehr, closer to the truth as the film critic of the Chicago Reader (then later the Chicago Tribune), would likely have agreed with Denby, for different reasons: He wrote that the movie was “one of the finest film explorations of the end of innocence,” ending with a “complete corruption” of Cruise’s character and “one of the most bitter and plangent sequences allowed to pass in an American movie.” And that’s about the ending that played in theaters; Brickman’s original ending gets far darker.

My guess, if you haven’t seen “Risky Business” in years, little of this sounds right.

You remember Tom Cruise’s Ray-Ban sunglasses, his father’s Porsche falling into Lake Michigan (via Belmont Harbor) and certainly Cruise dancing in his underwear to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll.” (That famous sequence, producer Jon Avnet told the Highland Park News a decade ago, wasn’t shot on Linden but at a soundstage in Skokie.) At a glance, much of what we associate with the ’80s teen sex comedy genre — gratuitous nudity, oversized bravado, Muddy Waters on the soundtrack — is still there. But in a brisk 99-minute runtime, there’s also criticism impossible to miss now, in 2023: the exploitation, the coldness, the white privilege, the little judgments (now called “micro-aggressions”), the pressure to hold on to one’s class.

Still skeptical?

Brickman’s original title was “White Boys Off the Lake,” as he told former Chicago journalist Jake Malooley in a 2013 Salon article : “I was writing it in the time just after Reagan had taken office and everyone wanted to be little capitalists, get their MBAs and wear power suspenders.” If you haven’t seen “Risky Business” in a while, you might not remember that the anxiety at the heart of Cruise’s Joel Goodsen (sounds like “good son”) boils over once he leaves the North Shore to cruise Chicago and meet the world. The world is less excited, and his parents, out of town, are unable to pick up the pieces.

If you don’t recall that, you probably don’t remember the movie, which features so much of Highland Park, was actually set in Glencoe. Not that it matters. Brickman grew up in Highland Park and partly made the film using high school memories of the town. Cruise, at 21, was mainlining a teenage naiveté that believes, regardless of wealth and standing, permanent records cannot be overcome. He does that little Tom Cruise thing of vibrating in agitation at times, without the veneer of gravitas he later used for court scenes in “A Few Good Men.” But his Joel is a good kid shouldering the weight of family expectations. There’s a sequence Brickman shoots through Joel’s eyes, as if he were a more benign serial killer in an ’80s slasher flick. Instead of breathing heavy and holding a knife, Joel watches and listens as his parents remind him not to have a party while they are out of town, and not to mess with his father’s stereo, and make sure he has money, and do not forget to meet with that admissions guy from Princeton University .

Joel leaves his parents at O’Hare, then, home alone, messes with the stereo, throws parties, and, until it’s too late, appears to have forgotten all about the admission guy.

He also hires a sex worker named Lana, played by Rebecca De Mornay. Brickman is too thoughtful not to admire her cleverness. She’s as resilient as Joel and his Ivy League-headed friends. After Joel doesn’t have money to pay her, he goes to downtown Highland Park to cash a bond. When he returns, she’s already in Chicago — with his mother’s expensive crystal egg. There’s also a killer pimp (Joe Pantoliano) and a scheme to turn Joel’s home, for one night, into a bordello, as a way of making the money that Joel needs to repair a sunken Porsche. There are hookers with hearts of gold, and a bald love of materialism so enticing that, like “The Wolf of Wall Street,” it’s hard to avoid being implicated in the shallowness.

As a teenager, I was enticed.

Most of the kids here do that movie thing — weaponized by Hughes — of sounding so confident, you could imagine basing your whole personality around their brand of brio. Joel is told often by his friends that “Sometimes you gotta say ‘What the (expletive).'” That sounded so, so wise in 1983. Of course, what I did not remember, until watching it again recently, was that everyone who says this either doesn’t believe it themselves (way too risky) or are so financially set that it’s easy for them to sound callously confident.

Little betrayals pile up for Joel.

He is kicked out of school. He manhandles a school nurse. The crystal egg cracks. The pimp forces him to buy the contents of his home back. His interview with Princeton becomes a joke. (“Looks like University of Illinois!” he laughs, embracing the truth.)

Except none of this is the truth.

If “Election” is our great cinematic high school film about the nature of politics, “Risky Business” is our great American high school “Chinatown,” about capitalism, only funnier. Brickman leaves his gut kick for the last moments. Joel does get into Princeton, having bought off the admissions guy with sex. He can’t quite believe this at first, though, as he realizes how the world really works, he gets it. And his future comes together. If you’re paying attention, his eyes go cold here. De Mornay’s Lana — whose future as a sex worker is considerably less certain — says they’ll make it big someday. Joel’s eyes offer nothing. He asks if everything bad that happened was a setup — was she working with her pimp all along? She hesitates, then says, no. It’s hard to believe her. Joel doesn’t.

At least, if you watch Brickman’s original ending (easily found on YouTube ), he doesn’t seem to believe her. She curls into his lap and the camera frames them against Lake Michigan and those unsettled feelings you have are not settled. In the ending everyone saw, they walk through Lincoln Park and joke lightly with each other. Roll end credits.

Either way, the good kids of the North Shore head into the darkness of Chicago and find trouble, then emerge in one piece. No, even better! If anyone gets screwed over, it’s Lana, certain to be dropped by a now-less naive Joel. (In what epilogue would Joel bring her to his parents and actually jeopardize his promise?) Indeed, 40 years later, some details aside — Harvard MBAs earn $40,000 here and a $4 hot chocolate at the Drake is considered nuts — “Risky Business” makes way more sense. It’s the world that’s colder. Forty years later, that lovely colonial on Linden looks even less attainable than it did in 1983. Curtis Armstrong, who played Cruise’s best friend Miles, wrote in his 2017 memoir that it seems safe to say “‘Risky Business’ was the last time (Tom Cruise) was just Tom.”

The other day, I streamed the film on Paramount+. Before the end credits could begin, Paramount’s algorithm started budging me into another yet movie about North Shore teens who drive a nice car to Chicago and find trouble. It’s called “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and it’s the “Risky Business” we prefer today. All the success, none of the mess.

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One of the oldest hotels in Hong Kong is the definition of luxury. 13 photos offer a glimpse inside Art Basel's hotel partner, The Peninsula.

The Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, an iconic property that opened in 1928, offers a luxury experience.
The hotel boasts nine restaurants, a spa, a mall featuring high-end brands, and over 50 suites.
The Peninsula also offers unique experiences like the Art in Resonance program and a helicopter pad used by celebrities.

Steps away from the glistening Victoria Harbour sits the Peninsula Hotel.

The flagship hotel in the Peninsula Hotels group, which boasts properties worldwide, opened in December 1928, making it one of the oldest hotels in Hong Kong. The original building only housed six floors and was the tallest building in the city when it was built.

Now, the hotel has a 30-story tower, more than 50 hotel suites, nine restaurants and lounges, a spa, and what they call a "shopping arcade," or an intimate mall featuring Chanel, Harry Winston, and other luxury brands.

The iconic hotel, one of the official hotel partners of Art Basel Hong Kong , sponsored by the global lead partner UBS, is nestled right on the Kowloon Peninsula in Tsim Sha Tsui. Thanks to their Art in Resonance program, it's also home to four memorable art pieces featuring "emerging and mid-career" artists. I toured the 5-star hotel and saw exactly why the Peninsula provides the best in hospitality and accommodations, from the hotel's helicopter pad, which has welcomed Bon Jovi and Tom Cruise, to the gym that Madonna specially requested be outfitted in the hotel's biggest suite.

When you first walk up to the hotel, you're greeted by an art installation in the hotel's signature green.

Kingsley Ng, a visual artist based in Hong Kong, was the creator behind the art installation affixed to the hotel's exterior. During Art Basel, " Esmeralda ," as it's titled, was unveiled revealing a sky-high art moment that mimics water waves.

You're also greeted by a fleet of Rolls-Royce cars.

Before you enter the hotel, guests know they'll be treated to a luxury experience thanks to the Rolls-Royce fleet parked outside. The hotel has 14 Rolls-Royce Extended Wheelbase Phantoms on hand for guests to use.

Every car is in the hotel's signature green with a peanut butter leather and wood paneling interior.

The cars are facing two stone Chinese lions, placed outside the hotel for protection, according to Kylie Cheung, the hotel's assistant director of communications.

There's also a vintage Rolls-Royce tucked away in the hotel's basement.

Housed in the garage is the hotel's most precious member of the fleet, a 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom II , a tailor-made car that belongs to the Kadoorie family. The family owns the Peninsula Hotel Group along with China Light and Power, an electricity company servicing most of Hong Kong.

The car, built in antique fashion, is preserved beautifully. I got a chance to sit inside the car, to feel the buttered leather under my hands. There's even a rotary telephone inside the vehicle, a call back to an earlier time before cellular phones and devices.

The hotel lobby is lavish. It features tall white columns with 76 hand-painted gargoyles on top.

Walking inside the hotel, you're met with two sides, both for dining.

The hotel's communications director told Business Insider that the middle of the lobby was previously used as a dance floor and that men and women would sit separately on two sides "so as not to cause embarrassment."

Today, the lobby is the place for the hotel's famous afternoon tea , held from 2-6 p.m. local time for a minimum cost of $350 Hong Kong dollars, or around $44. The all-day menu features an assortment of salads, pastas, sandwiches, and what they call "Asian specialties."

The lobby also houses an art installation by French artist Elise Morin. The art dune-shaped piece, titled "SOLI," comprises broken CDs, a nod to the piece's sustainable message.

The 300-room hotel has over 50 suites, including its finest, the Presidential Suite.

BI toured two of the hotel's suites, including the 4,000-square-foot Presidential Suite that's welcomed presidents, billionaires, and business leaders, according to Cheung.

The room, number 2608, is the picture of opulence thanks to marble floors, an executive dining table, a piano, and custom-made furniture.

Walking in, you're greeted by artwork, a 2011 wooden sculpture by Sun Yi titled "Dancer II." To the left is a media room where guests can relax and enjoy a movie.

If you'd rather look at the Harbour, floor-to-ceiling windows and a terrace offer the perfect unobstructed view.

A gym, specially requested by Madonna, sits in one of the suite's rooms.

As you move through the suite's dining room, if you walk too fast, you might miss the hidden full-sized kitchen, which features Miele appliances, a wine fridge, and an espresso machine .

Along with a bedroom comes a his-and-hers closet and bathroom. There's also a gym, the brainchild of Madonna. Yes, that Madonna.

When she stayed at The Peninsula, she didn't want to go downstairs to the gym, Cheung told BI, with the other hotel guests, and requested a gym be built inside the suite for her. It's stayed there ever since.

The cost for the entire suite? A mere $234,000 HKD or around $29,900 per night.

A smaller suite, costing about $2,000 per night, includes a spacious vanity area and closet.

If that price tag gave you a bit of sticker shock, don't worry. There are plenty of smaller, more affordable suites that aren't as grandiose as the Presidential Suite but are elegant all the same.

One of the smaller suites I saw included a dining room table, a living room with a faux fireplace, and a sitting area in the bedroom, along with a roomy closet and vanity area. The room even came with a nail dryer in case you need an impromptu manicure.

Outside The Verandah, a buffet-style restaurant, sits another art installation.

Lachlan Turczan, a native of Los Angeles, created one of my favorite art pieces with his water sculpture titled "Harmonic Resonance."

This kinetic sculpture moves water , thanks to submersible low-frequency vibrations.

When staring at the drum, I felt a sense of calm, feeling the remnants of the vibration through my feet. Looking at the sculpture reminded me that every cause has an effect.

A tucked-away music room also serves as the hotel's archive.

With such a history, the Peninsula Hotel also houses an archive of its achievements. It also serves as a soundproof room for the many musicians who've stayed at the hotel.

The hotel houses nine restaurants and lounges, featuring different cuisines.

Dining is one of the best aspects of staying at the Peninsula Hotel. The hotel boasts nine restaurants and lounges with two restaurants earning a Michelin star.

A Swiss chalet inspired Chesa, a manager told Business Insider. In fact, the entire interior of the restaurants was flown in from Switzerland.

There's also Spring Moon, which has earned a Michelin star and features Cantonese on its menu, a Japanese-inspired restaurant named Imasa, and Felix, which boasts "Contemporary European" cuisine, according to the hotel's website.

There are also two lounges, The Bar, and The Lobby, which I previously mentioned, and The Peninsula Boutique & Café that serves coffees and delicate pastries.

There's a reason Gaddi's has a Michelin star.

Business Insider tried a six-course meal at the French restaurant Gaddi's, led by Chef Albin Gobil. He recently earned a Michelin star, and it's easy to see why.

He's clearly a thoughtful artist who doesn't skip any detail regarding presentation. He also served a foie gras that was my best this year.

The experience is complemented by a dining room featuring chandeliers and textiles from the Ming dynasty, part of the private Kadoori family collection.

While shopping in the arcade, don't miss Saya Woolfalk's art installation.

According to on-site materials, Woolfalk's " Visionary Reality Portal ," is created by two kaleidoscope videos, 3D animation, live action, and hand-painted paper. The installation is meant to mimic the stained glass of churches.

Guests can skip Hong Kong traffic by landing at the hotel's private helipad.

Before walking out to the hotel's helipad, guests are treated to a small museum documenting the history of the China Clipper. The first plane, which could only go up about 10,000 feet in the air, lasted 10 years starting in 1935.

It's an area used for private dining and for going over safety precautions for anyone about to board the hotel's helicopter. And a few famous faces, including Tom Cruise and Bon Jovi, have walked this corridor since a helicopter is only an 18-minute ride from the city's airport, operator Paul Leigh, who's worked at the hotel for 30 years in various capacities, told Business Insider.

For any Batman fans, you might recognize the helipad from a 10-second shot in Christopher Nolan's 2008 film, "The Dark Knight," starring Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader and the late Heath Ledger as Joker.

Today, the hotel's helicopter is also used for many proposals. Leigh told BI he's never seen anyone say no to a proposal in the sky.

Main content

IMAGES

Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay dating after filming Risky Business
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Mission Improbable: Tom Cruise as Mogul
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Zaslav met Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish in December about a potential deal between the $29 billion (€26 billion) and $10 billion (€9 billion) companies, respectively. Steven Spielberg said the action star "saved Hollywood" last year. Now Tom Cruise is taking his star power to Warner Bros. to produce a new wave of films.
Why Tom Cruise joining forces with Warner Bros. is a bigger ...
Zaslav met Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish in December about a potential deal between the $29 billion (€26 billion) and $10 billion (€9 billion) companies, respectively. Steven Spielberg said ...
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Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962) is an American actor and producer. Regarded as a Hollywood icon, he has received various accolades, including an Honorary Palme d'Or and three Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for four Academy Awards. His films have grossed over $4 billion in North America and over $11.5 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing box ...
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