John Singleton Sues Paramount Over Hustle & Flow Deal

by Katey Rich

In 1991 John Singleton became history’s youngest Best Director nominee and the first black nominee in the category when his debut film, Boyz in the Hood, established him as an exciting new voice on par with contemporaries like Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee. Since then, his career has mostly become a parable about wasted opportunity and inexplicable decline. The last film he directed? The Taylor Lautner misfire Abduction.

But Singleton has done at least one good thing for filmmaking in the last decade, producing and financing Craig Brewer’s excellent Hustle and Flow, which got picked up by Paramount at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, made $22 million, earned Terrence Howard an Oscar nomination and Three Six Mafia an Oscar win. It also got Singleton a deal to producer two more films for Paramount, budgeted at $3.5 million each and intended for more emerging filmmakers to get the chance for their first films to be distributed by Paramount.

Neither of those films were ever made, and now according to The Los Angeles Times, Singleton is suing the studio for $20 million, claiming they didn’t just fail to get around to making the films, but “they just kept thwarting my efforts to make any of the movies.” Here’s what he said to the Times:

“I could have sold Hustle & Flow for more money to someone else, but Paramount promised something special — giving me the ability to make two low-budget films with young filmmakers and great talent. All I’ve ever done is make money for Paramount. I’ve lived up to all the deals I’ve signed and it should work both ways.”

Paramount, for their part, puts up the fact that Singleton directed Abduction for Lionsgate as evidence that he too had moved on from the deal, and insists that “his claims have absolutely no merit.” Presumably the next step in this drama will unfold in court, and in the meantime we all have to wonder what would have happened if Singleton had gotten to make those movies. Would they have been small-budget gems like Hustle & Flow?

Would they have at least been better than Singleton’s own 2 Fast 2 Furious? Singleton may have passed by his days as a filmmaker worth watching, but as a producer he seems to genuinely have good ideas and the best interest of emerging filmmakers. Whoever’s at fault here, it’s a shame this huge opportunity didn’t pan out.

Source: CinemaBlend

Celebrity Justice: Lindsay Lohan Banished to the Morgue

Okay, this isn’t “music news” but I have to admit I like watching this train wreck suffer. The chick has been given more chances than anyone I have ever seen, yet she continues to just spit in the face of the judicial system.

Well, now it is spittin’ a loogey right back at her. Courtesy of TMZ:

Good News for Lindsay Lohan: The judge who could end up sending her to jail has decided she doesn’t have to do any community service, at least for now.

Bad News for Lindsay Lohan: She’ll be sweeping up blood and guts at the L.A. County Morgue.

Sources connected with the Probation Department tell TMZ … Judge Stephanie Sautnercontacted Probation officials and told them to immediately yank Lindsay from her currentcommunity service assignment with the Red Cross. We’re told Judge Sautner ordered the Probation people to immediately assign Lindsay to morgue duty.

It’s clearly a sign the judge is pissed off — probably at the Probation Dept. for pulling a switcheroo by taking Lindsay out of the Downtown Women’s Center, where the judge ordered Lindsay to perform 360 hours of community service. Judge Sautner also ordered Lindsay to do 120 hours at the morgue, and now that’s taken top billing.

As for pissing off the judge, we’ve learned there’s something in the Probation report that will probably do just that. Lindsay’s probation officer wrote that Lindsay had problems with the Women’s Center, because it was “not fulfilling.” One more time — Lindsay complained the Woman’s Center was “NOT FULFILLING.”

We broke the story the Probation Department believes Lindsay has NOT violated her probation, but prosecutors feel the opposite is true and they want her in the slammer.

Lindsay is ordered to court this morning at 10 AM PT. It promises to be a showdown — and possibly an epic one.

Justin Timberlake Claims Music Is His ‘Bread And Butter’

By James Montgomery (@positivnegativ) 

If he had his way, Justin Timberlake would probably be doing promo for the follow-up to 2006′s FutureSex/LoveSounds right about now; it’s just that these pesky movie roles keep getting in the way.

That’s the takeaway from a new interview Timberlake gave to British magazine ShortList (to hype the U.K. release of one of those films, “Friends With Benefits,”) in which he spoke openly about his desire to return to music, and the public’s perception that he’s purposely ignoring his career as a recording artist.

“To be honest, my plan would have probably been to do another record, probably right about now. I never stop considering myself a musician. To me, it’s my bread and butter,” he said. “And I mean that in a personal way, I don’t mean that it finances my ‘acting hobbies.’ I joke with my friends that I should have a business card saying ‘David Fincher put me in a movie,’ because ‘Bad Teacher’ got a blessing due to ‘The Social Network,’ and then ‘Friends With Benefits’ came out of that.

“All the movies I’ve done were just opportunities that came up, but now that they’re all coming out back-to-back, people think, ‘Oh, he’s trying to make a statement by having an acting career,’ ” he continued. “But it’s not like that for me. I don’t ever want to stop doing music.”

Of course, in recent months, Timberlake’s musical output has been limited to a cameo in a video for “Hoodies On, Hats Low,” a song by his Tennman Records’ artist FreeSol, and an impromptu performance with the group at a restaurant he co-owns in New York City. But he maintains that he never really decided to put his solo career on the shelf. It just sort of shook out that way, much to the dismay of his fans, who have begun making impassioned (and slightly profane) pleas for his return.

“The only conscious decision I made was that I didn’t want to do a movie about a musician, because I felt like that was presumptuous,” he told the magazine. “If ‘Bad Teacher’ had come out before ‘The Social Network,’ it may have curbed it a bit because people got used to seeing me on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and thought, ‘Well, he’s kind of funny.’ I never cared about being taken seriously as a musician.”

So, when can fans expect to hear new music from Timberlake? Well, from the sound of things, it may be a while. For the immediate future, he’s focused on just disappearing for a while.

“I have nothing on my plate for the rest of the year. I’m getting sick of me,” Timberlake said. “I realize that I’m in a really lucky place because, to be honest, I don’t think I’m that good. I just want to make the right choices. You get to a certain age where you don’t feel the need to be validated by your choices in your career. I want to be validated more by choices in my personal life.”

Source: MTV