HOLLYWOOD - Ben Stiller has spoken out in defense of Tom Cruise, insisting it was "wrong" for Paramount Studios to axe its deal with the superstar last year.
Meet the Parents star Stiller insists Paramount boss Sumner Redstone should never have sacked Cruise after blaming his couch-jumping appearance on Oprah Winfrey's TV show for embarrassing the studio and hampering the box office performance of Mission: Impossible III.
And Stiller also believes Hollywood's highest earners deserve their staggeringly high salaries.
He says, "Studios don't pay out of the kindness of their heart. It's all an equation to them. That's all.
"At the end of the day there is only one Tom Cruise and it might be that whoever is paying the stars goes, 'Well, we don't necessarily need to pay that much.'
"But I think it was wrong for Sumner Redstone to go after Tom like that. It was out of left field.
"For the most part, Hollywood will stop paying the stars when it stops making sense to them to pay the stars. And they don't pay anybody a cent over what it's worth to them. It's not like you see these studios losing money."
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