section_path: Production
section_name: Production
paragraph_text: Production
  
  Cruise partnered with his former talent agent Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993, and the company has since co-produced several of Cruise's films, the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer. In addition, Cruise has produced films in which he does not appear in, namely The Others, Shattered Glass, Elizabethtown, Narc, Ask the Dust, and Without Limits.
  
  Cruise is noted as having negotiated some of the most lucrative film deals in Hollywood and was described in 2005 by Hollywood economist Edward Jay Epstein as "one of the most powerful—and richest—forces in Hollywood." Epstein argues that Cruise is one of the few producers (the others being George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer) who are regarded as able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar film franchise. Epstein also contends that the public obsession with Cruise's tabloid controversies obscures full appreciation of Cruise's exceptional commercial prowess.
  
  Cruise partnered with his former talent agent Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993, and the company has since co-produced several of Cruise's films, the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer. In addition, Cruise has produced films in which he does not appear in, namely The Others, Shattered Glass, Elizabethtown, Narc, Ask the Dust, and Without Limits.
  
  Cruise is noted as having negotiated some of the most lucrative film deals in Hollywood and was described in 2005 by Hollywood economist Edward Jay Epstein as "one of the most powerful—and richest—forces in Hollywood." Epstein argues that Cruise is one of the few producers (the others being George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer) who are regarded as able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar film franchise. Epstein also contends that the public obsession with Cruise's tabloid controversies obscures full appreciation of Cruise's exceptional commercial prowess.