MUSIC executives at Sony have denied Russell Crowe's claim that they led him to believe they would offer him a record deal. Crowe, who has been known to have the odd temperamental moment, was furious with Sony, stating that the company put him through a six-month "process" before passing on his band, The Ordinary Fear of God, and that he couldn't even get a meeting with the company.
Crowe has been touring with his band in New Zealand and Australia, including a gig at the recent MTV Australian Video Music Awards.
A Sony representative responded: "There have been meetings with Russell Crowe, but in regards to the quality of our large roster, we didn't take up the opportunity."
The entertaining Mr Baldwin
The scathing reviews for the Broadway opening of Lestat, Elton John's stage musical based on Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles ("a musical sleeping pill", according to the New York Times), overshadowed a backstage row in a nearby theatre. Jan Maxwell has made an early exit from the new production of Joe Orton's comedy Entertaining Mr Sloane, in which she and Alec Baldwin were playing middle-aged siblings taking a predatory interest in a seductive young lodger (Chris Carmack from The OC).
Maxwell claimed that Baldwin "created an unhealthy and oppressive situation" and cited an incident where Baldwin punched a wall because he was angry that the air-conditioning was not turned high enough. Baldwin acknowledged punching the wall, but said he had been sweating onstage and, as his character wears glasses, the sweat was making it difficult to see. He said Maxwell had not spent much time with the cast and did not participate in some post-performance discussions with the audience.
"I asked Jan in spite of all of it to stay," Baldwin said. But "no one is displeased by the way it all ended up, and Jan can't be either".
An English Education
Brad Anderson, who directed a skeletal Christian Bale in The Machinist, will script and direct the UK remake of The Edukators, Hans Weingartner's German film in which three young activists express their concern over global capitalism through protests and crime.
"What excites me most is the way the story straddles genres," says Anderson. "On the one hand it's a suspenseful thriller, and on the other, it's a provocative and timely political debate. Yet at its heart it's really a very sly, very dark romantic comedy. In my films I've always tried to artfully mash up genres."
Anderson will make the film after he shoots his next picture, Transsiberian, a thriller set aboard the train from China to Russia, as a young couple find themselves embroiled in a murderous plot with no escape.
Black humour for Gondry
Jack Black is set to star in Be Kind Rewind, the new eccentric comedy from Eternal Sunshine director Michel Gondry. Black will play a junkyard worker whose brain is magnetised, causing all the movies in his friend's video store to be erased. In order to keep the store's sole loyal customer, an elderly lady with signs of dementia, the pair have to recreate her favourite films, which include The Lion King, Rush Hour, Back to the Future and Robocop.
Hawke for Hunt
Last week the Mission: Impossible III synopsis on imdb.com began: "Secret agent Ethan Hawke comes face to face with a dangerous and sadistic arms dealer." While Hawke has dipped into action movies for Training Day and Assault on Precinct 13, his skinny, goatee-bearded appearance just didn't seem quite right for the hero of the M:I franchise. The website amended the entry later in the week, correctly naming the agent as Ethan Hunt.
Quote of the week
From Ian McKellen in the Guardian, modestly explaining why he gets cast in so many blockbusters (Lord of the Rings, X-Men, The Da Vinci Code): "Certainly I'm cheaper than Anthony Hopkins."
