Red-faced to Redskins: Cruise signs film deal with football team owner

TOM Cruise has won a new movie deal with the owner of an American football team, after his high-profile split from Paramount Pictures last week.

The actor’s company, Cruise/Wagner Productions, has signed a two-year financing agreement — said to be worth between $2 and $3 million a year — with an investment partnership headed by Daniel Snyder, who owns the Washington Redskins.

“This gives us the opportunity to work with all the studios and broadens our base,” Cruise’s producing partner Paula Wagner said.

The deal with First & Goal LLC — worth a fraction of the estimated $10 million-a-year Paramount contract — is to cover overheads and development, allowing Cruise and Wagner to run their company and make deals to produce films.

But they must find someone to finance production of those films and a company to distribute them. No financial details of the deal were released.

Hollywood was stunned last week when Sumner Redstone, whose company Viacom owns Paramount, revealed that the studio would sever its 14-year relationship with Cruise/Wagner because of the star’s public behaviour, which he branded “creative suicide.”

The 83-year-old claimed Cruise’s recent antics, which included bouncing on Oprah Winfrey’s sofa and what some have seen as his aggressive promotion of Scientology, had cost Paramount between $100m and $150m at the box office for his latest film, Mission: Impossible III.

First & Goal was set up specifically to invest in Cruise/Wagner. Snyder also heads an investment partnership that controls amusement park operator Six Flags, and Mark Shapiro, a former executive at TV network ESPN who heads Six Flags, will oversee the investment in Cruise/Wagner.

Shapiro said it was a “terrific” investment and brushed off discussion of Cruise’s behaviour or Redstone’s comments.

“We’re entrepreneurs and we like exploring new opportunities that present an excellent chance for success and innovation,” he said.

“We believe that Cruise and Wagner are a terrific investment. The track record speaks for itself.”

Last week Wagner said her company had secured financing from two hedge funds to produce films.

The deal with First & Goal allows Cruise to continue to star in films produced or distributed by any studio.