The head of Hollywood's leading talent agency has condemned Viacom chief Sumner Redstone's castigating comments about Tom Cruise and has suggested that the agency may now refuse to do business with Viacom's Paramount studios. In an interview with today's (Thursday) Wall Street Journal, Richard Lovett, president of Creative Artists Agency, which represents Cruise, said, "Paramount has no credibility right now. ... It is not clear who is running the studio and who is making the decisions." Cruise's partner, Paula Wagner, is a onetime CAA agent and is married to Cruise's current representative at CAA, Rick Nicita. On Tuesday Redstone told the newspaper that Paramount was cutting its ties with Cruise's production company because the actor's behavior over the past year was "not acceptable to Paramount." As the newspaper pointed out, under ordinary circumstances such an announcement would have come from Paramount Chairman Brad Grey or Viacom CEO Tom Freston. "For such talk to come out of the blue, from Mr. Redstone himself, and then be followed by two days of silence from both Mr. Grey and Mr. Freston, stunned Hollywood's power elite," the Journal observed. For his part, Redstone told today's Los Angeles Times: "Tom Freston should have made the announcement, but it was apparent to me he didn't want to, and I understand why: Because he's in the talent business." Redstone, in his interview with the Wall Street Journal, also said that he had received "congratulatory calls" from DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen -- who reportedly engineered the sale of the studio to Paramount -- and Imagine Entertainment founder Brian Grazer. "It is about time that the industry started dealing with these stars in a different manner and let them know that they are not going to get big money and act in a way that is inappropriate and embarrasses the studios," Redstone said.

Wall Street appeared to judge the Tom Cruise/Paramount schism less harshly than Hollywood. Entertainment analyst Hal Vogel of Vogel Capital Management told today's (Thursday) Hollywood Reporter that the movie industry may be coming around to the conclusion that "you can't have [film stars] walking away with the lion's share of the profit and the studio that risks the capital ... [getting] less payment than the guy who didn't risk any capital." (Viacom shares rose slightly on Wednesday but had given up most of their gains by midday today.) Other analysts expected that the Cruise/Wagner company would have little difficulty raising funds to finance its own movies. In an interview with the Associated Press, Simon Franks, chairman of Redbus Group, a private equity group, indicated he would have no reluctance to invest in a Cruise/Wagner production: "Most actors are overvalued, but Cruise is one of the few who is undervalued," Franks said. "He's never had a failure, so you'll get a high return on average investment."

In advance of its release on DVD, Wes Craven's original Freddy Krueger horror flick A Nightmare on Elm Street will be shown in 124 theaters across the country for two days only, Sept. 20 and 21, New Line announced Wednesday. In addition to the digitally remastered film, the theaters will be showing a reel of "Freddy's Best Kills," from seven Krueger sequels -- a reel, said New Line studios, "that can be seen only in theaters during this special event." Tickets are being sold online by www.BigScreenBoxOffice.com for $10.00.

The film version of playwright Alan Bennett's The History Boys, this year's winner of Broadway's Tony award for best play, will have its Royal World Premiere attended by Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, in London on Oct. 2. The entire cast of the play -- and movie -- will fly to London from New York, where it ends its engagement on Oct. 1. The play also won awards for director Nicholas Hytner, actor Richard Griffiths, and actress Frances de la Tour. In addition, it won for sets and lighting, making it the most honored play on Broadway since 1949's Death of a Salesman. The film version, from Fox Searchlight, is scheduled for release in the U.S. on Nov. 22.

The producer of Survivor is attempting to defuse controversy over his plans to divide "tribes" on the show along racial lines next season -- even before the controversy begins. Following the announcement on Wednesday that each tribe will be either all black, Asian-American, Hispanic or white, producer Mark Burnett told the New York Times that his intent was not to promote racial divisiveness. "In America today," Burnett told the newspaper, "even though people may work together, they do tend in their private lives to divide along social and ethnic lines." He acknowledged that he was reacting at least in part to criticism that the show lacked ethnic diversity. "We're always hearing about how we only have two token blacks on the show," he said. So, for the new season, the show attempted to reach out to social and church groups to bring in more non-white applicants. "We got so many good people we expanded the number of contestants to 20 instead of the usual 16," he said. Nevertheless, Burnett said, he was aware that the format would produce criticism. "I know it's going to be controversial," he told the Times. "I'm not an idiot."

With NBC's America's Got Talent now out of the picture on Wednesday nights, CBS moved into the lead for the night on the strength of reruns of its two procedural dramas, Criminal Minds in the 9:00 p.m. hour and CSI: NY in the 10:00 p.m. hour. Minds posted a 5.7 rating and a 9 share, while CSI:NY climbed to a 6.0/10. Ratings for all other shows on the major networks stood at 4.3 or below with the exception of ABC's Primetime: Medical Mysteries, which registered a 4.9/8 (good enough for second place at 10:00 p.m.) and remained the network's only successful summer entry.

A Florida judge has given former teacher Debra LaFave an exemption from her probation conditions to permit her to appear on NBC's Dateline. She is to be interviewed by Today co-host Matt Lauer in Tampa, FL where she is serving a three-year house-arrest sentence, after pleading guilty to charges related to her sexual encounters with a 14-year-old student. Her attorney, John Fitzgibbons, told the Associated Press Wednesday that LaFave wanted to discuss her "bipolar illness" so that others might understand her conduct.

The number of TV households in the U.S. grew by 1.1 percent to 114.4 million, Nielsen Research said Wednesday, thereby altering the principal factor used to compute its national ratings. Nielsen said the demographic group comprised of persons 55-64 years old -- the so-called baby-boomer generation -- expanded 3.9 percent. The ratings company also downgraded hurricane-hit New Orleans to No. 54 among the country's largest markets. Before Katrina, it had been ranked No. 43. The figure is significant inasmuch as many national advertisers will only buy commercial time in the top 50 markets.

CBS is testing yet another form of interactive marketing. It said Wednesday that it will beam clips of four new shows plus CSI: Crime Scene Investigation to travelers with Bluetooth-enabled cell phones and PDAs circulating through New York's Grand Central Station. The clips, about 30 seconds long, will be transmitted from a billboard in the train station. If the tactic proves to be successful, the network said, it will mount similar campaigns in other markets. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, George Schweitzer, president of the CBS marketing group, said. "We leave no stone unturned, no egg uncracked in trying to figure out how to reach viewers." [Schweitzer was alluding to another ad campaign in which the logos of some of CBS's new shows were stamped on eggs.]

A Muslim militant group in Gaza has released a video, similar to the sort that militant groups in Iraq have put out in the past, showing abducted Fox News journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig. The video, sent to the Al Jazeera news channel, was accompanied by an ultimatum demanding that the U.S. release "Muslim female and male prisoners in American jails in return for the prisoners that we have." The statement gave the U.S. 72 hours "to take your decision." No mention was made of what would happen to the two journalists if the U.S. did not comply with the demand. In the video Centanni and Wiig said that they were in "fairly good condition" and asked their families to rally political support to secure their release. Reporting on the development, Britain's Guardian newspaper observed that the statement "had uncomfortable echoes of the many videos produced by kidnappers in Iraq. The kidnappers' statement was filled with rhetoric and religious quotations, a change from the usual terse ones issued by Palestinian militants."

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has added a tribute to the late Aaron Spelling to Sunday night's Emmy awards telecast. Among those due to appear in the segment are several stars of Spelling-produced shows, including Joan Collins (Dynasty), Heather Locklear (Melrose Place), and Stephen Collins (7th Heaven). Spelling died in June at age 83.