Cult News

It’s official, Tom Cruise’s star power has been diminished and the likely reason is his Scientology-linked rants and accompanying bizarre behavior.

Despite zipping around on his jet to perform publicity stunts at various venues in an effort to attract attention and box office action, the middle-aged action hero of Mission Impossible III saw ticket sales come in at $10 million less than the last installment of his much touted Mission Impossible series.

“Hollywood tongues are wagging…asking if Tom Cruise’s image may be to blame” reported People Magazine.

And if the first weekend is any indication of a trend the 43-year-old star’s fans seem to be decidedly responding to Cruise’s media meltdown over the past many months by not showing up to support his latest film.

“There’s a lot to be said for how a star’s public persona can affect a movie’s box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

One Canadian newspaper the Ottawa Sun  asked what would once have been considered unthinkable–are “fans on a mission to snub Tom Cruise?”

Talks of boycotts and protests against the star have proliferated over the Internet in recent weeks.

One Internet forum even discussed flying planes with trailing banners to mock Cruise and Scientology as a protest at the Hollywood premiere of MI-3.

In an apparent effort to boost the sagging stardom of Scientology’s “Top Gun” it is rumored his fellow religionists are buying up blocks of tickets at one LA cinema.

But unlike Mel Gibson’s devoted religious fans, which made that star hundreds of millions supporting his cinematic vision of Jesus, it appears there are just not enough Scientologists to make a difference for Tom Cruise.

What does appear certain though is the purported “world’s greatest movie star” has stumbled and Hollywood studios may be far less likely to trust him to carry a big budget movie again.

Tom Cruise seems to have suffered this career setback largely due to his personal and religious hubris. And in Hollywood hubris may be OK, but not when it directly has an effect upon profits.

Scientology has come up with something called “Super Power” for its rich public patrons to spend their money on. “In the works for decades, the closely guarded spiritual training program will be revealed in Clearwater, Florida reports the St. Petersburg Times.

According to one of its first customers Matt Feshbach he now supposedly has “super powers.” Of course the multi-millionaire money management entrepreneur, who has been a big giver to Scientology, has nothing scientifically prove objective evidence to offer, but rather subjective anecdotal stories.

Diehard Scientologist Ron Pollack, who has tossed $5-million into the so-called “Super Power fund” reportedly got a sneak peek for his money. He saw some photo of a “hi tech thing.”

Apparently part of acquiring “super power” is spinning and floating around with the aid of various contraptions.

True believers like Fesbach and Pollack probably want to believe Scientology’s fantastic claims, because it makes them feel good. The church that Sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard founded in the 1950s is good at catering to its rich and famous clients, feeding their seeming sense of narcissistic self-entitlement.

Scinetology’s Hollywood celebrities such as Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Jeanna Elfman have reached the starry heights of Hubbardism, by ascending to his so-called “Operating Thetan (OT) Levels,” which continue from OT-1 through OT-8.

Cruise, Travolta and Elfman are reportedly at OT-7, with only one more level left to pay for.

So what’s a church to do that appears to be in the business of selling its religious revelations?

Here comes “Super Power.”

Something more to sell its faithful, well at least for those with the money to pay for it.

Reportedly it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach just OT-3 and find out about the link between space aliens and your negative reactive mind.

Some say Cruise and Travolta have given millions to Scientology for its courses, as gifts to the organization and programs linked to Scientology through the teachings of Hubbard like “Applied Scholastics” and Narconon.

Imagine if Tom Cruise is able to jump couches now, what will he do with “super powers.”

Ironically former members claim that when the church “checked back on the staffers who had been through Super Power. It turned out…many had left the church.”

This may mean that Katie Holmes’ parents best bet to break their daughter loose from the church many call a “cult,” is to get the girl “Super Power” ASAP. 

Super Power first customer Matt Feshbach’s niece has been linked to Holmes as her “best friend” and seeming Scientologist handler. Maybe she can take Katie to Clearwater and get her a dose of this “power,” which might enable the actress blast off to home and family in Toledo.

There was a time when 43-year-old Tom Cruise was Hollywood’s “Golden Boy,” but now pundits are wondering if Scientology’s “Top Gun” has lost his punch at the box office.

It may be that his penchant for preaching Scientology rather than sticking to an understandable script has stymied the star.

The Mission Impossible franchise is on the block and if MI-III flops, it’s unlikely there will be a number four. Cruise’s star power may have faded along with his public image. Increasingly, the middle-aged icon is dismissed as damaged goods by his critics and he needs a big hit for vindication.

Early reviews are not all that encouraging.

“As for the Tom Cruise movie star franchise, I fear that MI-III marks the beginning of its obsolescence,” reports London’s Sunday Times.

Times critic Chris Ayers laments that Cruise “is turning into a kind of 21st Century David Hasselhoff, only cheesier.” And that he is “a product of a different age…[and] is going the way of Schwarzenegger.” Joking that it’s lucky “that he is more interested in religion than politics.”

The Washington Post observed, “Funny how things change. Today, Cruise is kind of a wacky entity…He’s not just an actor anymore…he’s the guy who jumped on Oprah’s couch, the guy who got bitchy with Matt Lauer, the guy who criticized Brooke Shields for using antidepressants to help with postpartum depression. He’s also the guy who bought his own sonogram machine.”

Post celebrity watcher Liz Kelly asks, “Does Tom Cruise’s hype help or hurt ‘Mission: Impossible III’ at the box office?”

It might also be said that the Cruise franchise itself hasn’t been doing that good for about a decade.

When was the last time Tom Cruise had a genuine “hit,”  domestically that is?

“War of the Worlds” made more money overseas than within the US and barely recouped its production and advertising  costs stateside.

Rumor has it that Steven Speilberg wasn’t at all happy about the way his star mishandled the movie’s promotion, which focused more attention on Scientology than the Sci-fi film.

Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia, Mission Impossible II, Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, The Last Samurai and Collateral were arguably all domestically disappointing.

A frequent formula cited in Hollywood is that a film should take in double its budget domestically, including production and advertising costs, to be considered an unqualified “hit.”

Based upon that simple test Tom Cruise hasn’t had a hit movie in ten years, since Jerry McGuire.

Remember the “King of Pop” Michael Jackson?

“The Gloved One” was once a hit maker, but the public got tired of his weirdness and he became “History.”

Maybe Jackson and Cruise have more in common than rumors about their sexuality and the decision to make a Scientologist their first wife.

Box office numbers are the bottom line in Hollywood, and its time for Tom Cruise to deliver, or be labeled a dinosaur.  

And given the bloated budget of his latest movie and all his bad press this may be hard to do.

Perhaps in the end Cruise will be remembered more as a product of Scientology than Hollywood.

Unlike fellow Scientologist Tom Cruise, commentator Greta Van Susteren knows when to keep her mouth shut. The lawyer and top rated Fox News host says; “I don’t discuss religion, sex or money” reports the Palm Beach Post.

The religion Tom Cruise can’t seem to shut up about isn’t a subject the savvy Van Susteren allowed during her interview for Cox News Service.

The 51-year-old newswoman and long-time Scientologist is the daughter of a Wisconsin judge that once helped get Senator Joseph McCarthy elected, the originator of “McCathryism.”

The judge’s daughter graduated from Georgetown and describes herself as a “liberal.”

Van Susteren’s husband of almost twenty years John Coale is also a Scientologist and was once his wife’s law partner.

As CultNews reported some time ago when Coale and Van Susteren worked as legal team they at times were busy busting Scientology’s perceived enemies.

Scientology critic Tilman Hauser has a Web site with specific information about the historical connections between Van Susteren and Scientology.

Hauser discloses the following:

• The St. Petersburg Times reports about Greta & John, the High profile couple never pairs church and state  
• The National Law Journal details John Coale’s failed RITALIN litigation: Ritalin Class Actions: Fast Start, Big Stumble  
• According to lawyer Graham Berry, Greta Van Susteren helped convince CNN to cancel an exposé about the Scientology front Applied Scholastics.  
• Greta and her husband John P. Coale invested in Ponzi scam run by Scientologist Reed Slatkin; they invested $2.1 million, but got back $2.7 million according to report by the court-appointed trustee. When told that even innocent participants in a Ponzi scheme must legally return profits, John Coale said: “I’ll fight this thing for 100 years” because “Most of that money went to the IRS.” (The Los Angeles Times 2001). 
• After “Heaven’s Gate” cult suicide, Greta discussed suing the drug company that manufactured pills the cultists used to kill themselves.   

Shades of Tom Cruise and his crusade against psychiatric drugs?

But don’t expect to see this Scientology story in the mainstream media because the Fox News Queen seems to have gotten a pass from reporters, maybe because she is one.  

The power team of Van Susteren & Coale has moved on to much more lucrative things.

Coale helped to negotiate the $386 billion tobacco settlement in 1997.

And Van Susteren launched her career through the William Kennedy Smith rape trial on CNN, though in 2002 she dumped that network to join Fox.

“Greta’s probably the country’s best-known attorney,” Fox’s senior vice president of programming told the Post.

But once upon a time not that long ago Van Susteren was a just another lawyer religiously working for the church she now shrewdly doesn’t want to talk about.

Apparently Air America Radio talk show host Janeanne Garofalo has gone gonzo for the Scientology-linked program “New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project.”

On Friday April 28th Garofalo did her second show segment in the same month to promote the program based upon the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. This time the host of Majority Report allotted a 17-minute spot, for what came across as something like an infomercial.

CultNews previously reported about another Garofalo last April show promoting Tom Cruise’s pet project in New York, which included Scientologist and sitcom star Leah Remini.

This time Ms. Janeanne had no Scientology celebrity, but practically chanted the Web site address of the controversial project and its phone number.

The talk-show host was like some pre-recorded device, pitching questions to Jim Woodworth, so that the project’s head could hold forth with Hubbardisms.

And this isn’t the first time Woodworth has run a controversial health program.

HealthMed, cited within the seminal article “Scientology: The Cult of Greed” by Time Magazine was run by Woodworth and had a history of controversy, as reported within a series of articles published by the LA Times. Doctors in the “Sunshine State” accused HealthMed of making “false medical claims” and “taking advantage of the fears of workers and the public about toxic chemicals and their potential health effects, including cancer.”

Now it appears Woodworth may be attempting to do the same thing in New York, with increasing help coming from Janeanne Garofalo through Air America.

Doesn’t anyone at this network read newspapers or bother to use the Internet?

It has been repeatedly reported that Woodworth and his project were officially dumped by FDNY. Its chief medical officer Dr. Kerry Kelly told the New York Times that there is no “objective evidence” to support Woodworth’s bizarre claims that his subjects somehow sweat out toxins.

Never mind.

Garofalo/Woodworth, working like partners introduced “fireman/lawyer” Pete Gleason, who offered his personal testimonial.

But that’s subjective “evidence.”

Eventually Gleason admitted that the detoxification project has no official recognition or status with NYFD.

Woodworth explained that the process he promotes often called the “purification rundown,” which is something of a “religious ritual” amongst Scientologists, is a regimen of sauna stints combined with ingested doses of niacin and what housewives call “cooking oil.”

He made the startling claim that this remedy took L. Ron Hubbard “25 years” to develop.

In Ireland Professor Michael Ryan, head of the pharmacology department at a university, said the purification rundown is “not supported by scientific facts” and “not medically safe” reported the Irish Times.

Hubbard was no doctor, professor or qualified scientist. He was a Sci-fi writer, turned “prophet,” who seemed to prefer religious revelation rather than pulp paperbacks to make money.

Woodworth told Garofalo that he has processed “620” rescue workers so far and that it just “breaks [his] heart” that he couldn’t do more.

While Woodworth says the process is “free” to rescue workers the 21-day ritual reportedly costs the general public $5,200.00.

Could the heroes of 9-11 be pawns in a promotional effort to provide paying customers for Woodworth, or is that just a role reserved for Janeanne Garafolo lately?

Currently the two clinics associated with the “New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project” are consuming $2 million dollars annually. But Woodworth seems anxious to get his hands on federal funds and there were repeated references during the segment about a $125 million fund allotted by the government regarding 9-11.

Garofalo parroted Woodworth wondering aloud why the government won’t give him some of that money?

“Victims of outright bigotry” stated Woodworth, because his work is associated with Scientology.

The “Majority Report” host closed the segment promising Woodworth that she would be “talking to [him] again in the future.”

Has Garofalo’s gonzo spirit got something to do with a project she is cooking up with Hollywood Scientologists? Or will the talk-show host just get a guest spot on an episode of Remini’s “King of Queens”?

“Majority Report” fans don’t appear too happy and response to Woodworth wasn’t good, based upon the sentiments expressed at its blog.

“I lost all respect for this show tonight. Why are they pumping up Scientology and junk science?”

“I wasn’t really listening to the Scientology guy. It sounded like he kept saying he needed more funding. Is he trying to scam some faith-based initiative money?”

“Is there a specific program in the Majority Report studio to keep the television tuned to the Sci-Fi Channel?”

But Garofalo still has loyal listeners.

Note: CultNews has been told by a viewer of Scientologist sitcom star Leah Remini’s “King of Queens” show that Janeanne Garofalo has already done a “guest spot.” Does this mean the “Majority Report” spots for the Scientology-linked program on Air America was simply pay back time to Remini?