LOS ANGELES -- Tom Cruise has lined up investors to move his production company off the Paramount lot, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

The investors, who will provide $2 million or $3 million annually, are Daniel M. Snyder, 41, chairman of Six Flags Inc. and owner of the Washington Redskins; Mark Shapiro, 36, chief executive of Six Flags and formerly executive vice president of ESPN and M. Dwight Schar, 64, a Six Flags director and chairman of NVR Inc., a Virginia-based home builder.

Terms of the deal were not publicly disclosed, and Cruise and his representatives were unavailable to The Times yesterday.

The production company will employ fewer than 20 people, according to Shapiro. Cruise's producing partner Paula Wagner is looking for office space in Los Angeles.

Cruise and Paramount Pictures recently ended a 14-year relationship in which Cruise and Wagner got about $10 million a year to cover overhead and development costs.

Cruise and Wagner will need to find money to make the movies they develop and a studio to distribute them. Though Wagner last week said she and Cruise had lined up capital from a hedge fund, Cruise lawyer Bert Fields said no such deal existed.

Shapiro, who will oversee the investment, said the agreement with Cruise would not involve Six Flags.

"What drew us to them was their great track record," he told The Times.

Shapiro said Cruise's agents at Creative Artists Agency approached him and the other investors in mid-August, telling them that Cruise and Wagner were planning to produce their films independent of Paramount.

Cruise agent Kevin Huvane, who is close friends with Shapiro, brought the partnership together as the agency scrambled to find a home for the actor, sources told The Times.