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Tom Cruise Feels the Need to Speed to Warner Bros. After Seeing the Writing on Paramount's Wall
Plus, a red-hot scoop about Andrew Haigh's new Village Roadshow movie starring Ben Stiller and Colin Farrell.
Jeff Sneider
January 09, 2024
It’s Tuesday, and I’m ready to take a victory lap, for today was officially InSneider Confirmation Day.
This newsletter first reported that Kaitlyn Dever was in talks to play Abby in Season 2 of The Last of Us and that Carrie Coon was in talks to join Season 3 of The White Lotus, and HBO confirmed both stories on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Lucasfilm announced a new Star Wars movie titled The Mandalorian and Grogu, which corroborates what I’ve been saying on my podcast, The Hot Mic, for the past month. If you aren’t watching me mix it up with John Rocha once a week — and sometimes twice! — then you’re really missing out.
Before we get started today, a quick shoutout to the Black Boy Content Club and their BBC Club Podcast hosted by Chris Burns, Moses Primm, and Jay Washington. These three guys chop it up and review stuff together, they’ve got good chemistry as co-hosts, and most importantly, they’re funny as hell, so check ‘em out.
In tonight’s edition, which is exclusive to paid subscribers, you’ll read about Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller, Colin Farrell, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and Tina Fey. Enter the Sneider-Verse to keep reading…
Tom Cruise Feels the Need to Speed to Warner Bros. After Seeing the Writing on Paramount’s Wall
David Zaslav has a mission for Tom Cruise, who has chosen to accept it.
OK, now it’s serious.
When reports first emerged that Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav was sitting down with Paramount Global president Bob Bakish on the latter’s home turf in New York, there was obvious cause for concern but I didn’t take it too seriously.
I thought, ‘WBD is already drowning in debt, so why would they want to acquire what appears to be a failing business? Sure, certain synergies present themselves, but it seems like a huge headache for Warners.’ Quite frankly, I thought Zaslav was posturing — simply pretending to be interested in scaling up and buying Paramount in order to spur Comcast into action, hoping Brian Roberts would finally make an offer for WBD (as The Ankler also posited on Tuesday).
But now? Now I’m not too sure…
Tom Cruise is all-knowing and all-powerful, and if he’s running off to Warner Bros. it can only be for one reason — he sees the writing on the wall at Paramount, where he’s effectively been calling the shots for decades.