“He was jumping on the couch on the Oprah show,” Redstone later recalled. In 2006, Redstone abruptly canceled Cruise’s production deal and banished him from the lot after concluding that the actor-producer’s off-set behavior was hurting the studio’s business. After remaining highly bankable in subsequent years, including with the debut Mission: Impossible outing in 1996, the tide turned. He reveled in outdueling Barry Diller to gain control of Paramount and relished the role of movie mogul, walking red carpets and working the phones to monitor the grosses of every one of his studio’s releases.Ĭruise vaulted to the top tier of Hollywood’s A-list after Paramount’s 1986 release of Top Gun. Seven years later, he prevailed in the battle for Paramount. After building theater chain National Amusements into a successful exhibition chain, Redstone launched his bid for moguldom in 1987 by engineering a hostile takeover of MTV and Nickelodeon parent Viacom. Ultimately, the film business would be a cornerstone of Redstone’s legacy. By the time of his death, the chairman emeritus of ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) had long slipped into medical infirmity and a legal thicket, his voice uncharacteristically silent. The phrase “film lover” was not the primary description to appear in the many remembrances of Redstone’s memorable run as an entertainment billionaire. But the studio declined to elaborate on the gesture. Take Excitement & Suspense To New LevelĪsked about the shout-out, a Paramount rep told Deadline it was intended as a show of respect from star/producer Tom Cruise and the rest of the team behind the film, which started production less than a month after Redstone died in 2020 at age 97.

'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One' Review: Tom Cruise & Co. Tom Cruise Wants To Continue Making 'Mission: Impossible' Movies Into His 80s Like Harrison Ford With 'Indiana Jones' Tom Cruise Tells Director He Makes 'Mass Entertainment' Reveals Weirdest Tom Cruise Story

“To Sumner Redstone,” the acknowledgement reads, “film lover and friend.” Toward the latter part of the end credits, it offers a salute to the media titan who acquired Paramount Pictures and positioned it at the center of the Viacom-CBS empires he controlled for three-plus decades. After a flurry of action set pieces and plot twists, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One concludes on a more contemplative note.

Credits on the nbc app