Long Knight For Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise's latest film, the action-comedy Knight and Day, arrived with a thud this weekend at the box-office, yet another big budget blunder in a summer of lousy movies, but this turkey might have a devastating domino effect on Cruise's career, which is officially now in free-fall.  The movie sees Cruise paired with Vanilla Sky co-star Cameron Diaz (who's career isn't going great either, unless she's playing an ogre) in a globe-trotting action-packed spy movie, which, of course, sounds just like Cruise's Mission: Impossible series.  Cruise, who's last three starring roles, Lions for Lambs, Valkyrie and now Knight and Day have all been duds, really needs a hit, and had been developing a fourth Mission with producer J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird - the director of animated hits like The Incredibles and Ratatouille - making his live-action debut.    However, after seeing a Tom Cruise spy movie tank spectacularly (the movie currently sits at a distant third place on the weekend - it's opening weekend - behind the excellent Toy Story 3, which came out last week and the SNL reunion Grown Ups) Paramount has to be seriously reconsidering funneling cash into a creaky fourth Mission: Impossible.   Cruise and Paramount had a parting of the ways back in 2006 when the studio, after a fourteen year working relationship, opted not to sign a new deal with the actors production company and cited his strange off-screen behavior (Scientology, couch hopping, railing against anti-depressants) as the reason.  Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone said, at the time, "It's nothing to do with this acting ability, he's a terrific actor.  But we don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot."  The fact that they essentially bounced him off their lot makes it pretty clear that they would have little hesitation rustling feathers and pulling the plug on his new Mission if they felt it wasn't a solid business deal, and seeing him get his ass handed to him by Kevin James, David Spade and friends at the box office - for a movie with dismal reviews no less - makes me think that a new Mission: Impossible might prove to be an impossible mission for Cruise.  Interestingly, his other "comeback" project, a feature based around his Tropic Thunder character Les Grossman is also based at Paramount.  Should be interesting to see how this plays out.