Cruise Control

Here's Your Back End, Sumner! So Paramount says it will not renew Tom Cruise's contract because of his 'behavior.' Excuse me!? Cruise has just been saving Paramount money by generating the kind of publicity Paramount used to need a bungalow of flacks to manufacture. No, it's not bonkiness killed the deal. 'Twas money. It's always money. If MI3 had grossed what MI2 had, so far it's short about $110 million, Redstone would have kissed both Cruise cheeks north and sound on the steps of L.A.'s City Hall rather than let him get away. More likely, Redstone needs to bury a contract that gives the actor too much up front and at the back end -- again, north and south. We'll see who laughs last. But a precedent might be another L.A. institution who dumped an overpriced star thought to have grown more outspoken than productive. That institution, the Lakers, sent Shaquille O'Neill to Miami. That's the same Miami that currently has the 2006 NBA Trophy in its offices. And Happy 28th Birthday (yesterday) to Kobe Bryant. [Originally published August 25, 2006]