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Tom Cruise UA partner quits
Bill Condie14.08.08
Actor Tom Cruise's business partner Paula Wagner is leaving the top job at movie studio United Artists to become an independent producer.
She says she will continue to co-own the studio with Cruise and "be attached to UA's most exciting film properties".
Cruise and Wagner, a former talent agent, were brought in to head UA in November 2006 to resurrect the historic film company founded in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin and other artists.
They were given a minority stake in UA by parent Metro Goldwyn Mayer, estimated at the time to be around 30%.
So far the partnership has failed to deliver.
Its first offering last year, the political thriller Lions for Lambs flopped, losing about $30 million (£16 million) and the second, Valkyrie, about the attempted assassination of Hitler, is yet to be seen.
UA pushed its release from October to next February, although MGM has now said it will hit cinemas in December.
