In a summer of blockbusters, it's Hollywood's biggest cliffhanger, the real-life split of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise. Friends say there's a lot more at stake than a movie star break-up, a child's fate hangs in the balance. Tonight, inside details about the divorce drama. Here's Josh Manquets. He's the guy who climbed at Super Saiya Speed to the top of the Hollywood Eat and stayed there. Tom Cruise is the ultimate movie star on this planet. She's the sweet young thing who pulled off her own mission in Barcelona and married the star who was her teenage crush. And more and more in love every day. It's like wow. A Hollywood fairy tale playing out in real life. And then, just as suddenly, the fairy tale was over. Take news out of Hollywood tonight. Celebrity couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are splitting up. Katie Holmes' bombshell that she'd filed for divorce from Tom Cruise after five years of marriage caught everyone off guard. Including apparently her movie star husband. Katie Holmes' behavior is us who's escaping from alcatraz from a red-pum prison. The speculation was immediate and it was everywhere. She was splitting because of his controversial religion. So there's really sort of almost a third person in that marriage, that third person being the church. Absolutely. News of their split was just as stunning as the start of their courtship. Have you ever felt this way? With Tom's extremely enthusiastic declaration of love on the set of the Oprah Winfrey show. The beginning of this relationship was kind of like a circus. Melanie Bromley is senior correspondent for E-News. It was unbelievable. It went from 0 to 60 in the quickest amount of time. The year was 2005 and Tom Cruise was not just professing his passion for Katie. He gushed about Scientology too. The word Scientology means knowing how to know. Do you want more people to understand Scientology? Is that would that be a goal of yours? You know what? Absolutely. Of course. He was a dentist Scientologist since his first wife Mimi Rogers introduced into the church. And he in turn introduced his second wife Nicole Kidman to Scientology. By the time he met Katie, he was the church's celebrity in chief. When you want to put a face on that organization, the very public celebrity face, then Tom Cruise is that person. For the moment Katie, who'd been raised carefully, seemed to embrace Scientology. I have looked into it myself and I really like it and I think it's really wonderful. Have you tried any sessions at all or any auditing or anything like that? Yeah. And it's really, I feel like I'm bettering myself. Yes, there were cynics who said the romance was all for publicity. After all, a pretty young wife didn't hurt Cruise's appeal with younger audiences. For Katie's part, that man begins was on the big screen. And she looked good with a megawatt star at her side. The most extraordinary thing happened to me one day in April. I met Tom and I'm just so happy. Later came stories that this wasn't an accidental love at all. There were reports that leaders in the church played cupid for Tom, helping to find their leading man, a leading lady. Mark Edner is a journalist who's been reporting on Hollywood and the Church of Scientology for 15 years, most recently for the Daily Beast. We've all heard the stories of how Mr. Cruise was supposedly auditioning actresses to date and then marry. That seems very difficult to believe. You know, he's Tom Cruise. People are lining up, right? Tom Cruise is not your average movie star. He's a Scientologist. The church and his handlers within the church will do everything they can to find the quote-unquote perfect wife for Tom Cruise. It sounds difficult to believe, which makes this man's story all the more interesting. Mark Headley worked in video production for the church at the time, and he says he was part of that team tasked with finding the next Mrs. Cruise. He says it was called the Tom Cruise Project. Me and all Scientologists that were actresses, we auditioned them. There was no part. There was just, what do you think about Tom Cruise? What have you done in Scientology? But apparently none of those actresses made the cut. After all the girl Scientologists or female Scientologists had been exhausted, then it was like, okay, we have to go, you know, we have to move outside of the herd. Headley says that's when someone found this issue of 17 magazine. Inside a quote from a pretty young actress named Katie Holmes. She had always dreamed of marrying Tom Cruise and she had like a top gun poster up in her room, so that's how she became a potential candidate. The Church of Scientology insists there was no project to find Tom a wife, calling that a blatant lie. Headley split from the church in the months before Tom and Katie met. He sued the church over what he claimed were inhumane working conditions. He lost and is now appealing. The Church accused Headley of attempting to embezzle funds. Headley denies the allegations and no charges were ever filed. But whatever the backstory, Tom and Katie did end up together and at least for a time Katie seemed to be more than happy to be in effect. The first lady worked at the Church of Scientology. Wherever she was, she was always where the Scientologist was. Katie was often photographed with a church spokesperson nearby. It wasn't something that she was offended by, it was a part of her life and this was what being in love with her meant. Some people thought it was becoming too much for Katie. Scientology was effectively the third wheel, the third post in the marriage. Andrew Morton wrote a biography of Tom Cruise in 2008 and he's written that Katie's family watched with growing alarm as the once vivacious woman became increasingly subdued. She looked kind of dull eyed, she looked distracted and when she was asked questions she said, oh everything's magical. So she was being turned into this kind of set foot wife and people set up a website saying freekati.com. Free Katie? That was just a website. Katie was working on a plan. Coming up. My situation was pure hell. What's leaving the church really like a cautionary tale from someone who was inside when date line continues.