Tom Cruise takes a pay cut for Mission Impossible 4

Three weeks after its release Knight and Day has yet to cross the $75 million mark at the US box office and Paramount, who are currently getting the budget together for Mission Impossible 4, are taking note.

According to The Vulture as Tom Cruise can no longer guarantee box office success (not in the US anyway) Paramount is looking elsewhere for half of the production budget, and will only be paying Cruise after they have made their money back.

Here’s how they word it:

Cruise, who earned north of $90 million for the first Mission: Impossible in 1996 from gross participation and producing fees, is said to have agreed to be paid “scale” (that is, Screen Actors Guild minimum payment) for his acting in the franchise’s fourth installment, but will “get a nice back-end after cash break-even,” according to one insider familiar with the situation. (In English, that means that Cruise will take almost no salary up front, and will only be paid a portion of the grosses only after the studio recoups its investment, said to be about $70 million.)

Mission: Impossible III made nearly $400 million worldwide back in 2006, and while it was the lowest grossing of the franchise, Paramount will probably be happy if MI4 gets anywhere near that amount. Tom Cruise will be too as none of his movies have managed to make more than $200 million since. It will also mean he can get paid.

Mission Impossible 4, which currently is set for a December 2011 release, will be produced by J.J Abrams and directed by Brad Bird (Ratatouille).