Tom Cruise Rathbun claims that wife Nicole Kidman was wiretapped on Tom Cruise's suggestion (which Cruise's lawyer denies). In 2006, "Premiere" ranked Cruise as Hollywood's most powerful actor, as Cruise came in at number 13 on the magazine's 2006 Power List, being the highest ranked actor. The same year, "Forbes" magazine ranked him as the world's most powerful celebrity. The founder of CinemaScore in 2016 cited Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio as the "two stars, it doesn't matter how bad the film is, they can pull [the box office] up". In August 2006, Paramount cited Cruise's "recent conduct" as the reason they did
Tom Cruise Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993, and the company has since co-produced several of Cruise's films, the first being "" in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer. 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