Hey, guess what? Sumner Redstone watches Oprah! Or maybe the Viacom CEO had some other way of finding out about Tom Cruise’s year of wacktastic performance art — I hear he has a couple of media holdings. Anyhoo, he didn’t like what he saw on the 43,000 Matrix-ish screens in his office on the 376th floor*: Not Cruise’s “recent conduct,” not the underperforming grosses on Paramount’s Mission: Impossible 3, and, ultimately, not the sweet production deal Cruise has maintained with the Viacom-owned ‘Mount for 14 years. Redstone says he didn’t renew Cruise’s contract; Cruise (via producing partner Paula Wagner) says he left willingly to set up independent financing, a longtime goal. (Gosh, isn’t it everybody’s longtime goal to abandon a guaranteed stream of seed money for an ad-hoc consortium of as-yet-unnamed hedge funds?)

Of course, maybe it’s all been by-design. Face plants are funny, and (as you’ll see in the link above) Cruise may now be going the comedy route with Judd Apatow, writer-director of The 40-Year Old Virgin. Maybe he’s just been rehearsing for The 44-Year-Old Out-of-Work Actor. Maybe he’s having a Jerry Maguire moment.

But when the dust clears, a few questions remain: Was ol’ Sumner right to bring the hammer down? Did Cruise’s behavior affect your choices at the box office this summer? Did you avoid the best-made blockbuster of the summer (in this blogger’s opinion) because you found Cruise suddenly distasteful and didn’t want to line his pockets? And most important, is that attitude permanent? Or, given a period of Cruise quietude, will you return to loving his outer Cruise-ness and dismissing his inner kwaziness?

(*accessible only by man-eating pterodactyl; do not attempt to visit)

addCredit(“Tom Cruise: Chris Jackson/Getty Images”)

No matter what happened last weekend, you’ll likely have Tom Cruise to kick around for years to come. But what did happen exactly? And is a $48 million first-weekend gross really such a tremendous disappointment?

The average analysis notes that M:I3 opened softer than its predecessors, which earned the equivalent of $67 and $70 million on their opening weekends — and on fewer screens. The conclusion reached by the armchair handicapper: "Tom Cruise blew it." In other words, his Year of Weirdness killed his box office clout.

Maybe. But if that’s the case, then wouldn’t we have seen a steeper dropoff in female audience? Didn’t happen. Oh, and, by the way, M:I3 will almost certainly coast past $100 million — that makes seven straight $100 million pictures for Cruise. (Also: The picture opened $70 million-huge overseas, meaning Cruise is still one of the few global film stars.)

So is this a massive public relations flameout, a leggy Batman Begins-style slow-burn (as Paramount would have you believe), or just natural (and not exactly fatal) trilogy-itis? You tell me. Oh, and getting back to what’s really important: Doesn’t Katie Holmes look slender?

addCredit(“Tom Cruise: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage.com”)

Tom Cruise got all the free publicity he could have asked for yesterday with print and TV coverage of his Ethan Hunt-style multiple-vehicle criss-crossing of Manhattan. But I wonder how many of my fellow New Yorkers were really impressed. Many people here manage trickier feats of transportation every day, and without being able to ride on fire trucks, speedboats, helicopters, or private subway cars. You want to impress us, Tom? Here’s your mission, should you choose to accept it:

-Take the Lincoln Tunnel into the city during morning rush. Stay awake.

-From Times Square, hail a pedicab. Have the driver pedal you to Central Park, about a mile away. Try not to get socked for a $20 fare.

-Rollerblade your way to the United Nations. Dodge the taxis, diplomatic limos, and bicycle messengers.

-Cross the island from the East River to the Hudson River via 47th Street by any means you can find. In less than 15 minutes.

-Go to Brooklyn. Eat some cheesecake at Junior’s, then just try to walk.

-Cross the Verrazano bridge on foot, like the marathoners do.

-Ride the Staten Island Ferry back to Manhattan. You are not allowed to sit.

-Bicycle up the West Side Highway from the Battery, through Riverside Park, up to the George Washington Bridge. Dodge the trucks, skateboarders, and pigeons.

-Take the No. 1 subway train down to Times Square, navigate the alphabet soup of transfer corridors there to the N/R, and ride to Union Square, then find your way through that maze to the 6 train.

-Ride the 6 train uptown at 5:30 p.m., packed into a standing-room only car with sweaty commuters.

-Get off at 125th Street and Park Avenue, and try to hail a cab. (And keep trying. And trying.)

-Finally, take the cab to JFK. Get to the airport in half an hour without using the parkways.

As always, should you become apprehended, PopWatch will disavow all knowledge of your actions.

Everybody’s asking whether Tom Cruise can still draw audiences, especially women. (By ”everybody,” I mean the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and EW, whose Jill Bernstein appeared on this morning’s Today show to tout the upcoming issue’s cover story on whether Cruise is still worthy of his mega-paycheck.) Even Paramount appears concerned, having come up with ads for Mission: Impossible III that play up the romance angle.

Show of hands: How many of you are going to avoid M:I3 because you’ve been turned off by Cruise’s offscreen antics? How many will see it, but only because of J.J. Abrams or Philip Seymour Hoffman? How many because of Keri Russell? (Put your hand down, Slezak.)

addCredit(“Tom Cruise: Tony Barson/WireImage.com”)

Thanks to linguists Tom and Katie, we all now know that ”Suri” supposedly means ”princess” in Hebrew and ”red rose” in Persian. (Alas, my Hebrew-to-English and Farsi-to-English dictionaries are in the shop, so I haven’t confirmed those translations.) Now, thanks to the U.K.’s Times Online, we also know that it means ”pickpocket” in Japanese. And of course, in every language, it means ”publicity blitz.” Anyway, I applaud the new parents for their cleverness in picking a name so versatile that, no matter where the little girl travels, she’ll be snickered at behind her back.

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Maybe Tom Cruise jumps on couches simply because he can’t sit still. In an apparent effort to prove he does all his own vehicular stunts in the Mission: Impossible movies, America’s favorite still-boyish bundle of energy has planned a publicity stunt that will have him criss-crossing Manhattan for six hours in pretty much every available mode of public transport New York has to offer except a horse-drawn carriage. According to a press release from the Tribeca Film Festival, which is hosting the May 3 U.S. premiere of Mission: Impossible III, Cruise will spend the day traveling between screenings in Lower Manhattan, Harlem, and Midtown via motorcycle, speedboat, taxicab, helicopter, sports car, and subway.

Guess Cruise was too modest to mention that, while navigating the speedboat, he’ll also be teaching a child to read; while flying the helicopter, he’ll be helping a junkie kick heroin; and while driving the motorcycle, he’ll be assisting in the silent delivery of his child by Katie Holmes. Mom, Pop, and Baby TomKat will then stroll the red carpet at the Ziegfeld Theater (the baby will have learned to walk by the time it arrives at the premiere). Then they’ll all fly to a remote spot on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, where they’ll capture Osama bin Laden. And on the flight home, they’ll work out the principles of cold fusion. So it’ll be kind of a busy day.

Attention, heroin addicts! Tom Cruise can get you clean in three days, according to comments he made in this month’s GQ.

This is a pretty significant advance on current detox programs, which can be painful, laborious, and unsuccessful. Faced with such an amazing revelation in medical science, we decided to publish Cruise’s findings (as totally made up by us):

DAY 1: The drug Cocktail

Look at you. You’re addicted to smack. Now look at Tom Cruise. He’s handsome and addicted to nothing but awesomeness. And he’s here, in your house, jumping on your couch, talking about clean living and B vitamins. He puts on Cocktail, turns up the volume. Suddenly, it’s like there are TWO Tom Cruises in your house. One of them’s making tropical drinks to the strains of "Kokomo." The other one is hooking you up to some kind of extraterrestrial mood machine. Both of them are smiling. Hard.

Then Real Tom, the one with the mood machine, asks what you’d like to do tonight. You say heroin. Tom shakes his head, but he’s still smiling. He still loves you.  This is probably the best day of your life, even though you can’t understand how Tom Cruise got in your house without a key.

As you lose consciousness, you realize: Cocktail is an amazing movie.

DAY 2: Legend is the strongest medicine

Tom Cruise has a very serious look on his face. This is the day, he explains, where we watch Legend. "It’s going to be hard, but we’re going to get through it… together." Just hearing him say this makes you want heroin. You’ve never watched Legend without heroin before. It all goes pretty well until the unicorn shows up. Then you start to freak out. Man, Tim Curry is terrifying in all that devil makeup!

Tom takes your hand and tells you a story about the making of this movie. He reveals that none of it is made up. It is, in fact, a documentary. For some reason, this calms you. You want heroin a little less. You want a Legend sequel a little more. You’re not sure how to feel about this. But Tom is smiling. He loves you. He assures you that, whatever you may have seen or heard, Tim Curry is really dead and can’t hurt anyone anymore.

DAY 3: Emotherapy

Tom Cruise is cuing up his big scene from Magnolia. He’s not going to make you watch the whole thing because he’s awesome that way. Also, your therapy is almost over. You love Tom Cruise. You love clean living. You hate heroin and realize that it’s for jerks. You really, really love Vanilla Sky, which is clearly underrated and misunderstood.

Tom Cruise gathers his modest belongings and prepares to go. You’re 99 percent sure you’re off heroin, but you don’t want him to leave. You still haven’t watched Born on the Fourth of July. You want to hear the story of his battle with dyslexia, which happened on the side of a volcano and ended with dyslexia trying to spin-kick Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise using dyslexia’s momentum against it and sending it flying into the flaming caldera.

But no. Tom Cruise is leaving. He tells you one final story: "Look back," he says, "at the footprints in the sand. Where there are two sets of footprints, that is where I walked with you. Where there is one set… that is where I carried you." You ask why there’s so much sand in your apartment, but Tom Cruise just smiles and says he’ll pay for it. He’s awesome that way.

addCredit(“Tom Cruise: Rolf Klatt/WireImage.com”)