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Tom Cruise and Longtime Producing Partner Split
Thursday August 14, 2008

Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise backstage at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards on June 1, 2008 at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, CA.
Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

Tom Cruise is splitting with his longtime business partner Paula Wagner.

Wagner announced Wednesday that she is exiting as chief executive of United Artists to produce projects independently.

In a joint statement, she stressed that she will continue to co-own the studio with Cruise and "be attached to UA's most exciting film properties."

Cruise and Wagner were hired to head UA in November 2006. (The same year, Paramount Pictures ended its 14-year relationship with Cruise/Wagner Productions, Cruise's production company, citing his erratic behavior.)

In their two years at UA, they faced challenges.

The 2007 political thriller Lions for Lambs was estimated to have lost around $30 million.

Their second effort, Valkyrie — starring Cruise as a Nazi commander who plotted to kill Hitler — has been delayed more than once.

After being pushed from Oct. 3 to February 2009, it will now come out Dec. 26, the studio announced Wednesday.

Wagner's departure comes as rumors swirl that Cruise is trying to makeover his own career, aiming for more comedy than action roles.

He backed down from the spy thriller Edwin A. Salt — a role that has been rewritten for Angelina Jolie.

He currently stars in Tropic Thunder and has been eyeing the warmhearted comedy Food Fight about a snooty New York chef who is forced to cook meals at a school cafeteria.

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