Tom Cruise isn’t Ethan Hunt

Tom Cruise will most likely not be reprising his role as Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible series. Slate notes that when Cruise’s people “reached out” to Paramount about doing a fourth installment of the popular franchise, Paramount asked if Cruise would like to produce. Meaning, they don’t want him to star in it. It wasn’t much of an offer either as Cruise’s contract already guaranteed him this right.

This tells us not to read too much into that supposed rapprochement between Cruise and Sumner Redstone. And it suggests that the fighting between Cruise and Paramount studio chief Brad Grey over the deal for M:I3 was a lot more rancorous than we knew at the time. We don’t want to keep you in suspense: Cruise’s answer was no. Our source tells us that Paramount met this with a shrug, since in the not-too-distant future the studio expects that it will be free, contractually, to make the movie without involving Cruise’s production company.

Meanwhile, Slate alleges the side-by-side photo of Tom Cruise and Claus von Stauffenberg, the guy Cruise plays in the upcoming movie Valkryie, have been doctored to make Cruise more closely resemble the German hero.

Apparently, Tom Cruise has finally achieved leper status. Can things get worse for this guy? Sure. He could arrive on set one day, forgetting to remove his butt plug. That would be embarrassing, but it would never happen. He has a note on his fridge that reads, “Remember to remove butt plug before leaving.”