Tom Cruise Lawsuit Against 'In Touch' and 'Life & Style' Moves To Private Mediation: $50 Million Suit For Claims that Cruise "Abandoned" Suri

Looks like Tom Cruise's massive lawsuit against Life & Style and In Touch publisher Bauer Publishing will not play out in the public eye.

The $50 million suit brought by Cruise in October -over allegations made by the magazine that he abandoned his daughter Suri- moved to private mediation on Friday.

Papers were filed in the Central California U.S. District Court that ordered Cruise and Bauer Publishing to participate in private mediation. A motion filed last month indicated that the case would move to private mediation if the suit wasn't settled 45 days prior to the final pretrial conference. That deadline has passed.

Neither side appears to be in the mood for a quiet settlement, however. Cruise's lawyer Bert Fields called the reports a "disgusting, vicious lie."

" He talks to her every day, sometimes many times a day. It's just the opposite of what they said in the magazine," Fields added. "They are together all the time. He is a very caring father, and that is at the heart of this lawsuit," Fields told E! News last month.

The publisher stands behind its reporting, saying that the claims that the Top Gun star abandoned his daughter during a divorce with actress Katie Holmes are "substantially true."

Cruise's defense team plans to unveil a "history of bigotry and hatred toward minority religious groups and their members" on the part of Bauer. Cruise is perhaps the world's most famous member of the Church of Scientology.

Bauer countered that they were looking into the "role, if any, that Plaintiff's membership in the Church of Scientology played in his decisions regarding his visitation and communications with Suri Cruise after his separation and divorce."

What do you think? Did Tom Cruise "abandon" Suri? Are the tabloids way off base? Who do you think will come out on top?

Sound off in the comments.