This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

Moments after grumpy, 168-year-old Viacom mogul Sumner Redstone fired his now-infamous "That Tom Cruise Character Is Far Too Nuts To Ever Work For My Company" Shot Heard 'Round The World across the pages of the Wall Street Journal, chatter almost instantaneously commenced that the notoriously thin-skinned Cruise would dispatch his legal strongman, Scary Hollywood Lawyer Bertram "Bert" Fields, to devour Redstone's children. But rather than paralyze his quarry with a quick dose of poison, unhinge his jaw, and slowly swallow his retaliatory prey down until the clearly discernible shape of Shari Redstone bulged from his grotesquely distended belly, Fields instead announced that Cruise has "no intent" to call in a hit, telling The Hollywood Reporter, ESQ:

"We have no intent to sue Sumner Redstone over his pompous and inane statements about Tom Cruise's conduct as a reason for not re-signing him," Fields said by phone from his vacation home in France when asked whether a claim for defamation or other causes of action was in the works. "This is not something that will be solved in some court proceeding." [...]

"What's he talking about?" Fields said of Redstone. "Tom jumped up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch because he's wildly in love with Katie Holmes. He spoke out that people, especially children, shouldn't use mind-altering drugs. To say that's conduct that's unacceptable to Mr. Redstone? In the history of the film business, this will be remembered as the self-destruction of a movie mogul — he's either lost it all or he's getting very bad advice."

Fields, of course, is nothing if not a pragmatist willing to work both sides of an issue, and we imagine that now his trip to France has become a working vacation, he's drafting an ever-so-slightly altered version of his statement, just in case Redstone wants to retain him: "Tom jumped up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch because he's wildly pretending to be in love with Katie Holmes. He spoke out that sick people, especially children, shouldn't use mind-altering quality-of-life-improving drugs. To say that's Such conduct that's is unacceptable to Mr. Redstone?. In the history of the film business, this will be remembered as the self-destruction of a movie mogul star — he's either lost it all or he's getting very bad advice from his Scientology handlers."