Is United Artists on Cruise Control?

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Cruise still sells well out of the country— 66% of Mission Impossible III's $396 million worldwide box office came from overseas, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, but there's no certainty that will continue.

Negative Publicity

Little wonder then that Sumner Redstone blew his stack and sent Cruise and Wagner packing from Paramount this summer, ending a sometimes rocky 14-year marriage. Cruise's antics—his couch gymnastics on Oprah or staring down Matt Lauer over postpartum depression—further dented box-office appeal already in decline.

Paramount barely broke even on Mission Impossible III, according to Hollywood sources, while Cruise— who still gets the best deal in town— walked away with an estimated $75 million for his part as an actor and producer of the film.

Would MGM love to have a Tom Cruise hit on its hands? Sure. But Sloan would just as soon do it on someone else's dime, taking out the risk and allowing MGM to collect the 15% or so distribution fee that a studio traditionally gets. That's the game plan that Sloan, a long-time TV studio executive, brought to the private-equity funds who control the majority of MGM.

Investors' Heft

Under the Sloan scenario, MGM would provide the distribution infrastructure for its flicks, with someone else paying the far riskier freight of producing the film. That's why Sloan and MGM President Rick Sands signed on Harvey and Bob Weinstein earlier this year to distribute their flicks.

MGM tells BusinessWeek.com that it's committed to financing the new Cruise-Wagner films at UA "if private money is not available" and that there are "strong incentives" for Cruise to star in some of those films because "he owns the company." No doubt.

But Sloan has private-equity investors such as Providence and Texas Pacific who aren't likely to allow the MGM chairman to fund too many of those chancy little films. (Through their publicist, Cruise and Wagner did not comment.)

So Tom Cruise is likely to be the star in the new MGM story, which is essentially a remake of how Hollywood used to live—having other people take the risk while the studios take the money. Credit Harry Sloan for ordering up the new the script, and for signing Tom Cruise to sell it.

Grover is Los Angeles bureau manager for BusinessWeek.