Cruise Cleared for New Mission

Canada

Cruise Cleared for New Mission

Tue., May. 6, 2008 10:05 AM PDT by Josh Grossberg

Stephen Vaughan/Paramount Pictures

Here's one Mission we really thought was impossible: Tom Cruise and Sumner Redstone working together again.

Despite severing his 14-year business relationship with Cruise in 2006—a year after Mission: Impossible III blew up at the box office and Cruise bounced around Oprah's couch—Viacom overlord Redstone now says he's amenable to having the A-lister lead a fourth installment of the money-grabbing franchise.

"That's really up to Brad Grey, who runs Paramount," Redstone told reporters at the Seoul Digital Forum conference in South Korea.

"I consider Tom Cruise a great actor and a good friend," he added. "And if Paramount decides—and they will make the decision—to move ahead with him, I will not object."

Redstone cited a string of oddball behavior, ranging from sofa hopping to Brooke Shields bashing, as the reason behind ending Cruise's lucrative development deal with Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures.

"He was embarrassing the studio. And he was costing us a lot of money," Redstone groused to Vanity Fair at the time.

Cruise, 45, and Redstone, 84, have worked on patching things up. The two were spotted dining out in Beverly Hills back in March, which first sparked speculation that Ethan Hunt could be brought out of mothballs.