Scientology Is Getting Its Own CNN Type News Network

Accompanied by a $50 million dollar studio.

Reports that Tom Cruise is leaving The Church of Scientology fall flat as the star is set to launch a Scientology TV network, likened to CNN, and film company in a new $50 million dollar studio. The studio, Scientology Media Productions—set to be located on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard—is set to rival Paramount studios. 

The studio will be the site of Scientology ads, news broadcasts, documentaries, in addition to a site where Cruise can shoot his films, given the studio’s proximity to his home. 

The church’s Facebook page posted about the new studio saying, 

“Scientology Media Productions is the emphatic answer to that most vital question of how we will in fact catapult into the next dimension. When this new property opens, we will be capable of reaching virtually every person on Earth.”

The Daily Mail speculates the church may even hold auditions for Cruise’s new girlfriend at the studios. As you’ll recall his ex-wife Katie Holmes allegedly auditioned amongst a slew of actresses like Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Alba in order to be his girlfriend.  

According to Scientology expert Tony Ortega, who runs an anti-scientology site, Scientology has been involved in several of Cruise’s movies by pressuring movie execs, including last year’s Edge of Tomorrow

'Scientology has been heavily involved in his films. When he was making Edge of Tomorrow in England last year, I heard that there were handlers around him. His old handler Greg Wilhere was such a presence around Cruise on Days of Thunder they named a character in the movie after him. With War of the Worlds, Cruise convinced Spielberg to set up tents for his people, he would always insist they used a sound system Clearsound at Gold Base, he always wanted to bring Scientologists on set. They're not as involved as they want to be now.'

The movie studio would certainly give Cruise and the church the leverage to have a bigger hand in influencing these movies, especially when they have $450 million and $8 billion to back them up respectively. 

Here's what the studio is projected to look like, via photos from Scientology's Facebook page.

[via Daily Mail]

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