Revenge films top new UA development list

It’s official: Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner have landed on their feet.

With Thursday’s announcement that a deal had been struck to turn over venerable United Artists to the actor and his producing partner, Sumner Redstone became Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Mission: Impossible III.”

In every Cruise action movie, Tom prevails and the villain gets smoked. In this case, Redstone — who as head of Viacom tossed Cruise and Wagner off the Paramount lot with all the grace of security guards hustling off paparazzi — was pistol-whipped, garroted, tossed off a speedboat into the waiting jaws of crocodiles and, to finish him off, forced to sit through “Jackass: Number Two.”

The specifics of the deal are intriguing but also beside the point. Cruise and Wagner have full control of production at UA and are free to make whatever they want, including action pictures in the $100 million range. The longtime producing duo will also have a ownership stake in the company.

But more important, this is about revenge.  As the sayings go, revenge is sweet, revenge is a dish best served cold, revenge is sticking it to a greedy ungrateful curmudgeon who either wears a bad rug or visits a bad hairdresser.

NBC VIDEO Cruise invests in movie studio Nov. 3: Tom Cruise and his business partner, producer Paula Wagner, are reviving United Artists Studios in partnership with MGM and other investors. NBC's George Lewis reports. Today Show Entertainment

You can’t blame Cruise and Wagner for wanting revenge. They worked at Paramount for 14 years and brought in a lot of jack for that company. Granted, Tom went a little cuckoo with Katie, baby Suri and Scientology, but since when did strange behavior become taboo in Hollywood? If production shut down every time a movie star lost his head over a member of the opposite sex and made a spectacle of himself on national TV while touting a religion based on space aliens, Hollywood would be a ghost town.

So revenge-themed films might just be the order of the day when Cruise and Wagner sit down to plot out which projects they intend to make. To help them narrow down the list, here are some suggestions in the revenge genre that just might be up their alley:

“DEATH WISH: A NEW BEGINNING” — The old Charles Bronson franchise saw him going around New York City with a handgun, looking for human filth to waste. This updated version would see Tom patrolling the halls outside the Viacom boardroom, looking for human filth to waste. In this one, Tom will be armed with the Vanity Fair baby photos of Suri, a DVD of “Cocktail” and a copy of “Dianetics.” Those poor bastards won’t stand a chance. Like the Bronson series, this will turn into a lucrative franchise seemingly with no end, simply because Viacom executives multiply like amoebas. Tom can go after them over residuals, ownership of Paramount projects and even for moving expenses.

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