The thriller padded its $80 million domestic gross with another $13.2 million overseas, led by Col. Claus von Stauffenberg's loyal and/or curious German countrymen, who delivered $3.4 million of that total. (We can't explain the South Korean aid package, however, which amounted to $2.7 million.) Better news for United Artists: The film opens in another 13 territories next weekend. The downside: A good number of them, including Russia, France and Spain, were pre-sold to foreign distributors, thus downgrading the venerable studio's economic forecast from the robust "Eat shit, Roger Friedman" to the decidedly more modest "January payroll should clear." All things considered, we think they'll take it.

• 'Valkyrie' tops foreign box office [Variety]

MGM is paying dearly for the rest according to the NY Post, which reports today that the studio has spent $70 million marketing the Tom Cruise thriller in advance of its Christmas opening. That's about twice the average promotional budget for a studio opening expected to gross less than $100 million, putting Valkyrie's total cost at close to $160 million. Remedial Hollywood math thus suggests that MGM and Cruise's United Artists require at least a $275 million theatrical gross to break even after exhibitors take their cut, which seems... unlikely, however much better the film is than we initially feared.

MGM tells the paper its spending is in line with the average, and the campaign will doubtless also trickle down to DVD and the studio's waning output deal with Showtime. Still, for what UA takes from MGM's coffers versus what it puts back, the Valkyrie returns hint that Cruise may yet have a $15 million Sundance entry in his future just to even things out. More on Valkyrie — including pinpoint-accurate opening-gross predictions, as always — in tomorrow's Defamer Attractions weekend preview.

• Doubling Down [NYP]

Valkyrie, Cruise's upcoming flick about the real-life failed attempt by high-ranking German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler, has been screen-tested for regular ol' moviegoers in Nevada, I'm hearing.

The audiences weren't aware of what they would be seeing because they had been blindly solicited to attend a free movie at their local multiplex.

I'm told most of the audiences were really diggin' the flick. "They liked it," a source says. "Most people said it was a suspense thriller."

Indeed, 7 out of 10 Valkyrie viewers rated the film as "as good or better than Babylon A.D.," though a majority of comment cards also found themselves disappointed by the less-than-uplifting ending, in which a captured Tom Cruise is fed to the Führer's sows as punishment for his treasonous crimes. Look for a much more upbeat and high-octane climax when the film finally hits theaters this Christmas.

[Photo credit: MGM]

• Tom's New Flick Secretly Cruising Into Theaters [E Online]

'I LOVE Paula Wagner, but she wants to produce elsewhere and in her own venue, and I don't intend to stand in her way. I'll say this of her leaving United Artists - whatever Paula wants is what I want her to have! And I hope we'll continue working together on future projects."

So spoke Tom Cruise on the phone with me this week. He added, cryptically: "I don't run United Artists; I just own it."

WHEN I asked Tom why he felt so many people in the business have gone after the Valkyrie" project as if it's a bad idea or something historically obscene, he sighed: "It just doesn't make sense to me either. The moment I read the screenplay I knew it was an important story, and as it's a true tale of heroic resistance to one of the great villains of history, I can't imagine that people won't want to see it."

Cruise's unflappably sanguine outlook has, of course, been what has helped propel him to superstar heights, and never will it be of greater service to him than in this highly transitional period in his career. Still, we'd have expected more from Cruise in his "don't ask me, I just sign the checks!"-attitude in addressing UA's failings. In Hollywood, where blame is flung around like fistfuls of chimpanzee crap on the set of Speed Racer, a clear and focused Alpha-superstar such as himself should be expected to step up and shoulder the blame for development misfires like Lions For Lambs 2: Armaggedon Reckoning.

• A NICE LITTLE CHAT WITH CRUISE [NY Post]

The accident happened almost exactly one year ago and saw all 11, still wearing their Wehrmacht uniforms, sent to the hospital with an array of injuries, ranging from bumps and bruises to broken ribs and pulled ligaments. One extra was kept in the hospital for four days on suspicion of internal injuries.

The actors fell onto the street when a fold-down side-rail on the bed of the truck — against which the thespians were leaning — failed. The group's lawyer, Ariane Bluttner, says that United Studios knew that the trucks used in the filming were not entirely safe.

"The studio knew the trucks were rickety," Bluttner told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "There had even been an internal memo about the railings."

After representatives from Merrill Lynch determined that the "United Studios" referenced in the article was in fact United Artists, the investment firm interceded to curtail the disbursement of their precious Street funds to grimy Nazi extras. A tersely worded statement from Harry Sloan is expected by noon, beginning, "We would like to clarify a matter in the media that at all of our trucks carrying Nazi extras were soundly assembled and that any injuries were incurred by plain old German drunkenness."

• Nazi Extras Sue Tom Cruise's Film Studio for $11 Million [Spiegel Online via Deadline Hollywood Daily]

Most observers seem to think its a scenario as likely as the anthrax contagion rumored to be puffed through MGM Tower's central A/C, but frankly, we're in love with the idea. Moreover, we're in love with the 91-year-old mogul still rocking the brass balls it takes to reportedly offer $3 billion for the studio he sold to Sony four years ago for $5 billion:

Kerkorian's purported $3 billion offer roughly equates to the value of the studio implied in recent trading activity in MGM debt instruments, banking-community insiders noted. ...

Well-placed sources indicate MGM is sufficiently capitalized to fund film chief Mary Parent's ambitious new slate of film productions and other studio operations for at least another year. But after that, most believe, the studio likely will need to turn to new equity investors to maintain equilibrium.

We, too, had heard earlier whispers that Reliance Big Entertainment had considered an MGM bid before settling on DreamWorks for a fraction of the cost (and about 10 times the momentum), but thank goodness it took a pass. No potential deal boasts the appeal of Kerkorian 4.0, whose traditional role as Moribund MGM Heir historically augurs at least a few short-term miracles for the studio; the guy clearly can't wait to get in on that coveted remake of Red Dawn and/or putt around in the United Artists power vacuum. Which reminds us: Expect a press release from Harry Sloan by the end of the day assuring Hollywood that Tom Cruise is still in charge. He's just saying. Is all.

• Rumor values MGM at $3 billion [THR]

But, for whatever reasons—and Paula knows what they are—the much ballyhooed $500 million Merrill Lynch credit line went unspent, causing an increasingly nervous MGM chairman/UA remote-overlord Harry Sloan to enact a contingency coup that resulted, directly or indirectly, in a flurry of executive resignations culminating in Wagner's own. The once-moribund UA now returns to the comfortable, ghoststudio stasis in which it stagnates best. But what of the real issue now at hand—and by that we mean What This Means for Tom, and By Extension All of Hollywood, and By Further Extension Every Single One of Us?

Cruise's trajectory lately has been, for lack of a better metaphor, not unlike a Tori Spelling dinner party; it started out promising enough—some nice notices for his over-the-top, Scott Rudin-esque (whoever keeps comparing it to Sumner Redstone hasn't seen the movie) turn in Tropic Thunder—but ended with the actor seated squarely on the career crapper, surrounded by yes-men applauding his every movement. You know the beats: The curious case of Edwina A. Salt. The Scientology racketeering lawsuit. The whispers that he personally—personally!—pressed a pillow onto Isaac Hayes's face in his sleep when he found out the singer planned on donating none of his $750 Sunset Junction earnings to the Church.

Here's MGM's press release on the split, followed by Wagner's own statement:

"Paula Wagner, Chief Executive Officer of UA, has decided to leave her day-to-day responsibilities and return to her first love, which is producing films. As such, MGM and UA confirmed today that Ms. Wagner will transition to the role of a producer under her own independent production shingle and be attached to UA’s most exciting film properties. In November 2006, United Artists was reborn under a partnership formed between Tom Cruise, Ms. Wagner and MGM. Ms. Wagner will continue to be a part owner of UA and hold a significant stake in UA’s future success. Nothing will change in regard to Mr. Cruise’s involvement with UA and he continues to have a substantial ownership interest in the company. Furthermore, Mr. Cruise and Ms. Wagner will continue to work on film projects together.

“I’ve truly relished working with my longtime partner Tom Cruise to revitalize United Artists, and I am proud of all that we’ve accomplished in the past two years, reinvigorating the brand and developing such a strong slate of films. But I always tell my sons, ‘Follow your passion’ – and I’ve got to follow that advice myself. As much as I’ve enjoyed my time as an executive, I have longed to return to my true love, which is making movies, so that’s what I’ve decided to do. I still believe in our vision for UA, and I am confident that Harry Sloan and our colleagues at MGM will see that vision through to reality.”

• Disunited Artists: Who wins, who loses [THR]
• Tom Cruise's Movie Studio Imploding: Paula Wagner Is DOA At United Artists; But Was It Suicide or Murder By MGM? [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

As one source explained to me, the only future for UA was if "Paula calls it a day, or the company implodes on its own, or a gun is put to Wagner's head by financiers and she greenlights things and then trusts in luck..."

UA under Wagner was way behind on the timetable dictated by its financing, I'm told. "Paula wasn't greenlighting movies, so she was about to lose a lot of the money. Her camp is trying to say MGM screwed up. We didn't, she did. Now MGM can get UA moving on at least 2 movies, and make sure they're released by a certain date, to keep the financing intact."

That said, I hear Wagner wants to go back to producing movies, but this time around she'll do it on her own.

Sure, she could do that, but this seems a perfect opportunity to return to her first love: acting. That is, after all, how she got her start, before her frustrated agent sat her down and told her what she really had was the soul of a baby-gobbling negotiator. Perhaps pacing outside a fluorescent-lit casting office, nervously running through her Big Bang Theory audition dialogue for Woman At Starbucks #2, is exactly what she needs to rediscover what she loved about this unforgiving business in the first place.

• Tom Cruise's Movie Studio Imploding: Paula Wagner Is DOA At United Artists; But Was It Suicide or Murder By MGM? [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

Look at it this way: If you had $500 million of Wall Street's money waiting to be spent on a few Tom Cruise projects, or maybe on some of these comic-book adaptations we hear are doing OK these days, or even on an annual $30 million rom-com that will land snugly and profitably among the summer doldrums, how fast could you greenlight four to six projects a year? Finke's sources say Wagner herself is the "problem" — as in she, not Cruise, stands to lose the most from a third, fourth or fifth UA project facing the kind of backlash drawn by Lions For Lambs and Valkyrie (the first of which, it bears noting in fairness, actually made money). We sympathize, to a point, but at some point you've just got to pull the trigger — figuratively, of course. After last week's drama, if we heard a gunman was loose in the building, we'd probably give up, too.

[Photo Credit: Variety]

• Another Top Executive Exits United Artists [DHD]

Mr. Cruise, his partners at United Artists and the Valkyrie filmmakers are bracing for what will likely be a nine-month fight to prove their critics wrong. "We will not be daunted," Paula Wagner, chief executive of United Artists, said last week.

During a 90-minute interview at the company's headquarters in a Century City office tower, Ms. Wagner said she and her fellow executives were intent on overcoming negative reactions that she saw as rooted in ignorance of the process of building movie production companies.

"Anybody trying to dismiss us or write us off doesn't understand the business," Ms. Wagner said. She added: "Nothing is going to stop us. We are determined to make this work."

OK, we admit it: We don't understand the business. Like the second release-date shift out of Oscar season and into the dramatic dumping ground of February? That's apparently totally normal. That whole thing about Mary Parent showing up on the scene and reportedly getting a base salary of $5 to $6 million to remake MGM on her own, non-UA terms? Totally coincidental — nothing to do with UA's flailing! MGM chief Harry Sloan's vague defense of UA? A ringing endorsement! That public lunch date between Cruise and Sumner Redstone? Nothing to do with movies! Redstone probably just wanted recommendations for Suri's birthday gift — preferably an action franchise installment under $125 million.

Or maybe we understand the business just enough to know we've seen this before. To paraphrase Paul Sunday in There Will Be Blood, "We'd like it better if you didn't think we were stupid." It's not like we want to see UA fail, but come on. Even Roger Friedman can see this one coming.

• The Nazi Plot That's Haunting Tom Cruise and United Artists [NYT]

Delicious as they were, Redstone's takedowns of Cruise during the pair's 2006 bust-up never exceeded the realms of showmanship; the hard feelings that surfaced in the press aren't quite what you'd call insurmountable. Especially under these circumstances, with Paramount facing the loss of its disgruntled moguls (and their properties) at DreamWorks and Cruise (with producing partner Paula Wagner) wedged into an already over-budget, so-far-so-bad production and distribution deal with MGM — which owns about 65 percent of UA but is also hedging with reliable, low-maintenance new hires to create a totally separate production slate. None of this pleases Cruise and Wagner, who are reportedly disappointed enough in MGM's feeble infrastructure to buy MGM out with a percentage of future deals headed back to the studio. If they did it at Paramount, though, with Redstone capping budgets around $60 million, would it even be worth it?

We're just saying, of course. There's no accounting for ego and/or hard feelings, but really, there's not that much water under these guys' bridge. And we all know lunch at the Polo Lounge is never just "lunch." Is it?

• Mission Possible: Redstone, Cruise Re-Establish Ties [WSJ]
• All Forgiven? [NYP]

We just love the idea that a giddy Cruise (the buzz over bringing Paul Haggis into his family surely hasn't faded) now begins each day by diving into the enormous pile of screenplays that dominates his office, and, after emerging from the mound holding aloft a bradded trophy, shouts to his overwhelmed development staff, "Now this one's gotta be better than Lions for Lambs. Let's make a movie. No, let's make a thousand movies! We've got the whole business to ourselves!"

• Previously: Cruise's United Arists Cutting Deal With WGA; AMPTP Less Than Pleased With Traitorous Studio [Defamer]

· Sundance's high-profile "Premieres" titles have been revealed, including Jack Black/Mos Def/Michel Gondry project Be Kind Rewind and Alan Ball's directorial debut, Towelhead. [Variety]
· Running out of new episodes of its scripted series, NBC is cramming three extra hours of reality shows onto its early 2008 schedule, with American Gladiators, The Biggest Loser and 1 vs. 100 filling timeslot holes caused by the strike. "We're kicking off the New Year with a craptastic, writer-free bang!" crows NBC's head of alternative programming. [Variety]
· Cameron Diaz's Christmas wish is granted as Shrek the Halls puts up "socko" (translation: huge) Nielsens Wednesday night, ensuring that future generations of children will be spending the holidays with their favorite Santa-ogre. [Variety]

But back to business. The film's lack of commercial appeal wouldn't be a problem if the movie were generating reviews that would give it Oscar fuel. But it isn't, and UA's got two more tough-to-market movies coming down the pipeline. Up next is Valkyrie, in which Cruise plays Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a German icon who tried to assassinate Hitler. You might recall that the Germans—hostile to Scientology—wouldn't allow filming in the Bendlerblock, where Stauffenberg was executed. When the government relented, footage shot there was mysteriously damaged in the lab and had to be reshot.

Valkyrie is a period piece with a downer ending, but at least it's directed by Bryan Singer, who has The Usual Suspects and the first two X-Men to his credit. He might be able to make a movie that has some box office appeal, though whether the public is prepared to swallow Cruise in a Nazi uniform with an eye patch is obviously a looming question. (One industry veteran sniped that the photo from the production makes Cruise look like one of the Village People.)

The third movie coming from UA is Oliver Stone's take on the My Lai massacre. No kidding. At least they cast Bruce Willis instead of Mel Gibson, who was considered at one point.

Even taking into account our suspicions that there's a powerful network of Teutonic saboteurs who will stop at nothing—they've proven themselves unafraid to employ flatulent suicide-bombers to wreak havoc on the shoot— to bring down the Valkyrie project, we think the single greatest threat to the film's success, as Masters alludes to above, is the indelible image of Cruise released by United Artists months ago. Every time we see him in that costume, we're consumed by a fantasy of grabbing the star by his cheeks and telling him, "Who's my adorable little Nazi hunter? Who's gonna go off and kill the big bad Hitler today? You are! Don't forget your lunch, I packed you a yummy ham-and-chesse sandwich today!," an urge that's done little to dispel our fears about the actor's persistent credibility problems.

• The Couch Jumper Can't Win [Slate]

The U.S. actor has been cast as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Nazi dictator in July 1944 with a bomb hidden in a briefcase.

Defense Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer said the film makers "will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult".

"In general, the Bundeswehr (German military) has a special interest in the serious and authentic portrayal of the events of July 20, 1944 and Stauffenberg's person," Kammerbauer said.

We fear that the German government's lingering prejudices have clouded their judgment in this matter, basing their hasty decision on an early treatment developed by Cruise, in which his von Stauffenberg character attempts to slowly kill Hitler by depriving him of the many self-actualizing services offered by Scientology, causing the Fuhrer to die from the despair of knowing he'd never reach his potential as a fully clear leader without the help of daily auditing sessions. The project has since been turned over to respected Usual Suspects writer Chris McQuarrie for a more action-packed and historically accurate script, which should calm the Bundeswehr's fears about the authentic portrayal of the protagonist.

• Germany bans Cruise film shoot from military sites [Reuters]