Surf's Up for Scientologists

Losing His Religion?

LA Weekly, May 24, 2000
By Christine Pelisek

In other Scientology news, OffBeat was amazed to read in US weekly earlier this month that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman had begun severing their ties to the Church of Scientology. US also reported that Cruise, while filming the Warner Bros. film Eyes Wide Shut, had "hinted" to the studio that releasing the John Travolta project Battlefield Earth would be a mistake.

A week later, however, US Weekly ran a "For the Record" notice declaring that the magazine had subsequently "found" that Cruise remains an "active and committed member of the Church of Scientology" and that the actor had never said, much less "hinted," anything negative about Battlefield.

Nevertheless, the widely panned sci-fi groaner, based on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's novel, appears to be going down as a colossal box-office failure. OffBeat, which has been the object of Scientology's none-too-tender PR ministrations, would love to know what went on behind the scenes of the correction .