TOM CRUISE - UA ABOUT TO BE REBORN

Tom Cruise is reportedly close to raising the money needed to bring United Artists, the studio founded 86 years ago by Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, back to life. According to today's (Tuesday) Los Angeles Times, Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner, have raised the nearly $500 million that it will take to finance a slate of films for the now dormant UA, 65 percent of which is owned by MGM and the remainder, by Cruise and Wagner. The money is reportedly coming from a group of Wall Street investors led by Merrill Lynch. According to the Times, UA's first production under the deal with Cruise and Wagner is the Robert Redford-directed political drama Lions for Lambs, starring Cruise and Meryl Streep. The director and two stars agreed to defer most of their upfront fees -- the entire movie is budgeted at just $35 million -- in return for a cut of the gross less production and marketing costs.

27/02/2007