Tom Cruise to revive former Bond studio United Artists

Two months after his bitter break with Paramount Pictures, superstar Tom Cruise has teamed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. to revive United Artists, the fabled studio founded by four of the biggest names in early Hollywood, MGM said on Thursday.

Under his new partnership with MGM, Cruise will produce at least four films a year for United Artists with his longtime business partner, Paula Wagner, who will oversee day-to-day operations of the studio as its chief executive officer - reports Yahoo.

The pact comes after Cruise and Viacom Inc.-owned Paramount abruptly ended their 14-year-old production deal with Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone taking a parting shot at Cruise's off-screen behavior, saying his "recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

Redstone was referring to a string of high-profile faux pas by Cruise ranging from his manic, couch-hopping profession of love for actress Katie Holmes last year on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to his strident denunciations of psychiatry in defense of his belief in the Church of Scientology.

The agreement with MGM allows Cruise, whose latest film, Paramount's "Mission: Impossible III," grossed more than $390 million worldwide, to star in pictures for UA while remaining available to appear in movies for other studios.

"We were looking for a strategic partner (for UA) and we've found a strategic partner and it just so happens that he's the biggest star in the world," MGM spokesman Jeff Pryor told Reuters.

Under their new deal, Cruise and Wagner will now exercise control over UA's movie slate -- about four films a year to start -- from initial development to giving the go-ahead to new productions, MGM said in a statement announcing the deal.

But that ability to "greenlight" production will be "subject to certain parameters," MGM said. The new UA will remain located at the MGM studios in Los Angeles.

As reconstituted, UA will function as a major supplier of feature films to MGM, with the parent studio and its equity partners fully financing production and development of those films. Privately held MGM also will handle worldwide marketing and distribution for UA films.

"The talent friendly studio will be reborn as a place where producers, writers, directors and actors can thrive in a creative environment," MGM said in the statement.

United Artists was founded in 1919 by screen legends Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks and pioneering director D.W. Griffith -- the four biggest names in motion pictures at the time. Their goal was to give artists more control in response to the studio system that dominated Hollywood at the time.

Formation of the studio elicited the famed remark from Richard A. Rowland, then president of Metro Pictures: "So the lunatics have taken charge of the asylum."

UA secured distribution rights to films released by MGM in 1973 and was purchased outright eight years later MGM, whose history dates to Hollywood's silent movie era.

Formerly a publicly company controlled by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, MGM was acquired by April 2005 by a consortium of private equity firms and media companies, including Comcast Corp and Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news).

MGM's film library contains more than 1,200 titles, including such classics as "Midnight Cowboy," "Some Like It Hot," "Annie Hall" and the "Rocky" and "Pink Panther" movies. It also includes "Rain Man," which co-starred Cruise and earned four Academy Awards, including the Oscar for best picture.

In May, a USA Today/Gallup poll found that Cruise's star power had waned considerably in the eyes of the public, with more than half of those surveyed registering an "unfavorable" opinion of the actor.

Many cited his off-screen behavior during the past year, including his intense public discussions of his faith in Scientology and his blunt criticism of actress Brooke Shields for taking medication to treat postpartum depression.

Thanks to `Jack Wade` & 'Orlando bond' for the alert.

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