Tag Archives: Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise to File For Divorce After Katie Holmes "Plays the Media," Lawyer Claims

Tom Cruise has remained conspicuously silent throughout the pandemonium surrounding his impending divorce from Katie Holmes, who filed last week. According to reports, that is 100 percent by design. The star’s lawyer, Bert Fields, says Tom is planning to file as well, but has opted to let his estranged ex “play the media” before making any legal move. “Tactically we can’t say where Tom will file for divorce and if he’ll be seeking joint custody of Suri,” Fields said, adding, “We are letting ‘the other side’ play the media until they wear everyone out and then we’ll have something to say.” Although it appears a contentious battle over custody for 6-year-old Suri looms ahead, Fields reiterated that Tom is disheartened by the turn of events. “It’s not Tom’s style to do this publicly,” Fields said, alluding to the Scientology rumors from Katie sources and Tom’s reported attempts at reconciliation . “He is really, really sad about what’s happening.” Holmes, 33, filed for divorce June 28 in New York City and is seeking sole custody of Suri . Speculation has been mounting that Cruise is planning to file a counter divorce case in California and seek joint custody, but as of yet, he has not. The opening salvo comes July 17, when Holmes’ camp is set to appear in front of a family court judge in NYC, presumably to request a speedy temporary order granting her sole custody before Cruise’s legal team has a chance to respond. Choose your side :

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Tom Cruise to File For Divorce After Katie Holmes "Plays the Media," Lawyer Claims

Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes Prenup: How Much Will She Get in the Divorce?

How much will Katie Holmes get in her split from Tom Cruise? That depends on a number of variables, but the prenup she signed in 2006 basically cuts her out of the vast majority of her fortune, according to reports. One source calls the prenup she signed “long, tight and stacked in Tom’s favor.” Not that she minds. She just wants freedom for herself and her daughter. A source close to Cruise says reports that she will receive $3 million for every year they were married are false, and that she will receive next to nothing . At the same time, “She’s not about the money. She’s not that girl. She loves to work. Money is not that important to her. She makes plenty on her own.” A major sticking point in the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes divorce – besides custody of Suri – may be child support, which she reportedly wants from the star. As for whether Katie will challenge the prenup, it’s pretty common when a divorcing couple is in conflict, though it’s unclear on what grounds she’d contest it. Katie sources are not ruling that out, but they insist she’s not out for cash and cite the prenup as proof of her intentions: she didn’t marry for his money. So why’d she leave? Reportedly out of fear that their daughter, now six years old, would be dragged deep into his controversial Scientology belief system. Holmes’ decision to file for divorce blindsided Cruise, but it appears she had been planning to leave him , or at least thinking about it, for up to six months. Incidentally, Forbes ‘ new list of highest paid actors in Hollywood has Tom at #1, by a wide margin, with $75 million between May 2011 and May 2012. Leonardo DiCaprio and Adam Sandler tied for second with $37 million. Gives you an idea of Tom’s league when it comes to stardom … he’s in his own. [Photo: WENN.com]

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Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes Prenup: How Much Will She Get in the Divorce?

Connor Cruise on Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes Split: Family is Forever!

There’s a potential custody fight over Suri Cruise on the horizon, but when it comes to Tom Cruise’s older kids, the ties that bind seem to be tight ones. Isabella and Connor Cruise, his two adopted children with ex Nicole Kidman, have so far remained mum on the impending Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes divorce . But Connor seems to be weighing in, subtly, taking to Twitter to allude to the news: “#LaFamilia Always. Friends Come And Go, But Family Is Forever.” Connor Cruise , 17, is especially tight with his dad. These last few weeks, he was on hand as Tom received the Friar’s Club’s Entertainment Icon Award. The 33-year-old Holmes, who is reportedly seeking sole custody of Suri, 6, has been close to her stepson and stepdaughter since marrying Tom. Holmes has hunkered down in NYC following the split, amid speculation that his commitment to Scientology played a role in the relationship’s demise. Cruise, who’s been on location in Iceland filming the sci-fi flick Oblivion , has just hired Dennis Wasser to represent him in the divorce battle ahead. That’s the same attorney who handled his divorce from Kidman in 2001; He and Nicole, who is re-married to Keith Urban, remain on good terms. [Photo: WENN.com]

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Connor Cruise on Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes Split: Family is Forever!

Katie Holmes Divorce Papers Say Marriage to Tom Cruise Over in 2011

Katie Holmes claims that her marriage to Tom Cruise was “irretrievably” broken at least six months ago … something that is probably news to Tom, who was reportedly “blindsided” when she filed the paperwork in New York last week. The Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes divorce is shaping up to be contentious, especially since he didn’t see it coming, the two were reportedly walking hand-in hand in Iceland, where he’s filming his new movie, just two weeks ago. It’s unclear why she considers things effectively over by late 2011. All accounts to date suggest that Holmes is attempting to free her daughter from the influence she fears Tom’s religion, Scientology, will have on her life. Clearly, they see things differently. Katie claims in her divorce documents that both she and Tom have been residents of New York for “at least 2 years.” The couple does own an apartment there that is deeded in her name, but Katie has been living in a separate place in NYC in recent weeks with Suri Cruise . Katie, 33, who filed in NYC, must establish legal residency in the Empire State in order for the court to have jurisdiction over the case, specifically custody. New York courts are more likely to grant sole custody to one parent over another if there is conflict, which no doubt played into her decision to file there. Tom, 49, who has shared a home with Katie in L.A. ever since they got married in 2006, will no doubt fight the residency claim and the custody claim. Expect this one to drag on for months, if not years. [Photo: WENN.com]

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Katie Holmes Divorce Papers Say Marriage to Tom Cruise Over in 2011

Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes Divorcing

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Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are calling it quits after 5 years of marriage. According to People, the couple issued the following statement: “This is…

Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes Divorcing

REVIEW: Tame Rock of Ages Gets a Slurpy Tongue Bath from Tom Cruise

Many of us who were alive in the 1980s claimed not to listen to heavy metal or its almost indistinguishable twin, hard rock. But we did listen, or at least we heard it — it was unavoidable, an omnipresent aural beast slithering out of car radios, grungy bars and retail-establishment stereo systems. Even if you were more attuned to punk or jazz or just about anything else, it was part of the background noise of your life whether you liked it or not. If nothing else, Rock of Ages — adapted from the Broadway show of the same name, in which ’80s metal hits from the likes of Def Leppard, Foreigner and Night Ranger were woven into a rudimentary boy-meets-girl love story — reminds us just how good many of those songs we were pretending not to listen to really were. The picture has a good-natured, if self-conscious, spring to its step, at least until you-know-who shows up in a bejeweled devil’s head codpiece. The movie almost doesn’t survive his slurpy tongue bath. Seeing Tom Cruise swathed in leather pants and fake tattoos, as Axl Rose-style metal god Stacee Jaxx , is supposedly Rock of Ages ’ big draw. But the movie is much more fun when he’s not around, partly because the story has been retooled from the stage show to give his character a dose of much-needed redemption. Why can’t he just be bad? The appeal of rock’n’roll is that it’s supposed to be disreputable. The rejiggered plot of Rock of Ages also involves a family-values crusader, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, who vows to make the streets of Los Angeles “safe for teenagers” by killing the most popular rock club. That’s a tangled irony the writers of the exceedingly tame Rock of Ages — Justin Theroux, Chris D’Arienzo and Allan Loeb, riffing on the original book by D’Arienzo — can’t worm their way out of. But it’s probably futile to hold Rock of Ages up to such close scrutiny. The point, mainly, is to watch two young people, good-girl Oklahoma metalhead Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough, of Dancing with the Stars ) and mild-mannered aspiring rock musician Drew Boley (Diego Boneta) meet, fall in love, break up over a misunderstanding, and then get together again. As the movie opens, Sherrie arrives in Los Angeles with a suitcase full of dreams (or record albums, which pretty much amount to the same thing) that’s promptly stolen. Drew, a barback at a rock’n’roll watering hole known as the Bourbon Room, tries to get it back for her but fails. Still, the sparks fly immediately, and Drew helps Sherrie get a job at his club, which is managed by an aged rocker whose leather vest barely reaches around his tubby belly. His name is Dennis Dupree, and he’s played with a great deal of shrewd glee by Alec Baldwin . Dennis runs the Bourbon Room at a deficit; his right-hand man is the scrawny, reasonably helpful Lonny (Russell Brand, who appears to be running out of tricks outside of just being Russell Brand-y). Dennis thinks he may be able to turn his club’s fortunes around by booking Stacee Jaxx, who got his start thanks to Dennis. Unfortunately, Jaxx’s manager — Paul Giamatti in a baldy-man ponytail and a succession of comically broad-shouldered suits and patterned sweaters — cheats Dennis out of any profit he might have made. Meanwhile, Patricia Whitmore (Zeta-Jones), the Tipper Gore-ish wife of the city’s mayor elect, tries to put Dennis out of business in other ways. Through it all, or through most of it, Drew and Sherrie make moo-moo eyes at one another and duet their way through the catalogs of Foreigner, Extreme and Warrant, dusting off songs like “More Than Words,” “Heaven Isn’t Too Far Away” and “I’ve Been Waiting for a Girl Like You.” Did I mention that Malin Akerman shows up as a poodle-haired, half-brainy half-horny Rolling Stone journalist? Actually, there’s a lot going on in Rock of Ages , probably too much. The simplicity of the stage show (which originated way off-off-Broadway, in a Hollywood club, in 2005) put the spotlight on the music, for better and sometimes for worse. The movie, made by longtime choreographer-turned-director Adam Shankman (also the man behind the 2007 Hairspray ) is often busier than it needs to be. All that extra business detracts from the modest appeal of the leads: Boneta has some of the scrappy charm of the very young Matt Dillon, and Hough is sunny in a wind-up doll sort of way. Unfortunately, their musical numbers are shot and cut in such a way that it’s hard to actually watch their bodies move — why cast a dancer like Hough if we don’t really get to see her move? Then there’s the Tom Cruise problem. He’s fun to watch in his first few scenes, hamming it up as a spoiled rock’n’roll satyr. But the role quickly becomes a retread of the one he played in Magnolia , only in a different costume. Cruise can’t hide his cockiness — it’s in his blood. But even when he tries to kick back and poke fun at himself, he takes the job so seriously that it becomes a sort of grind. There’s nothing sexy about him, unless you find studied posturing erotic. That said, he does strut quite ably through a version of “Pour Some Sugar on Me” — it’s his best moment, and one of the liveliest bits in the movie. Zeta-Jones might have been used to better effect, considering how dazzling she is in her one big number, a rendition of “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” which she performs in the unsexiest of costumes, a boxy pink suit. Zeta-Jones gets her revenge later, though, when she shows up in one of the sleekest, foxiest getups I’ve seen all year, at long last giving the movie some bite. You’ll get just a glimpse or two, so enjoy it while it lasts. The rest of Rock of Ages is a sprawl whose cheerfulness feels more than a bit calculated. It’s a fake tattoo with the volume turned way, way up. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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REVIEW: Tame Rock of Ages Gets a Slurpy Tongue Bath from Tom Cruise

REVIEW: Tame Rock of Ages Gets a Slurpy Tongue Bath from Tom Cruise

Many of us who were alive in the 1980s claimed not to listen to heavy metal or its almost indistinguishable twin, hard rock. But we did listen, or at least we heard it — it was unavoidable, an omnipresent aural beast slithering out of car radios, grungy bars and retail-establishment stereo systems. Even if you were more attuned to punk or jazz or just about anything else, it was part of the background noise of your life whether you liked it or not. If nothing else, Rock of Ages — adapted from the Broadway show of the same name, in which ’80s metal hits from the likes of Def Leppard, Foreigner and Night Ranger were woven into a rudimentary boy-meets-girl love story — reminds us just how good many of those songs we were pretending not to listen to really were. The picture has a good-natured, if self-conscious, spring to its step, at least until you-know-who shows up in a bejeweled devil’s head codpiece. The movie almost doesn’t survive his slurpy tongue bath. Seeing Tom Cruise swathed in leather pants and fake tattoos, as Axl Rose-style metal god Stacee Jaxx , is supposedly Rock of Ages ’ big draw. But the movie is much more fun when he’s not around, partly because the story has been retooled from the stage show to give his character a dose of much-needed redemption. Why can’t he just be bad? The appeal of rock’n’roll is that it’s supposed to be disreputable. The rejiggered plot of Rock of Ages also involves a family-values crusader, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, who vows to make the streets of Los Angeles “safe for teenagers” by killing the most popular rock club. That’s a tangled irony the writers of the exceedingly tame Rock of Ages — Justin Theroux, Chris D’Arienzo and Allan Loeb, riffing on the original book by D’Arienzo — can’t worm their way out of. But it’s probably futile to hold Rock of Ages up to such close scrutiny. The point, mainly, is to watch two young people, good-girl Oklahoma metalhead Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough, of Dancing with the Stars ) and mild-mannered aspiring rock musician Drew Boley (Diego Boneta) meet, fall in love, break up over a misunderstanding, and then get together again. As the movie opens, Sherrie arrives in Los Angeles with a suitcase full of dreams (or record albums, which pretty much amount to the same thing) that’s promptly stolen. Drew, a barback at a rock’n’roll watering hole known as the Bourbon Room, tries to get it back for her but fails. Still, the sparks fly immediately, and Drew helps Sherrie get a job at his club, which is managed by an aged rocker whose leather vest barely reaches around his tubby belly. His name is Dennis Dupree, and he’s played with a great deal of shrewd glee by Alec Baldwin . Dennis runs the Bourbon Room at a deficit; his right-hand man is the scrawny, reasonably helpful Lonny (Russell Brand, who appears to be running out of tricks outside of just being Russell Brand-y). Dennis thinks he may be able to turn his club’s fortunes around by booking Stacee Jaxx, who got his start thanks to Dennis. Unfortunately, Jaxx’s manager — Paul Giamatti in a baldy-man ponytail and a succession of comically broad-shouldered suits and patterned sweaters — cheats Dennis out of any profit he might have made. Meanwhile, Patricia Whitmore (Zeta-Jones), the Tipper Gore-ish wife of the city’s mayor elect, tries to put Dennis out of business in other ways. Through it all, or through most of it, Drew and Sherrie make moo-moo eyes at one another and duet their way through the catalogs of Foreigner, Extreme and Warrant, dusting off songs like “More Than Words,” “Heaven Isn’t Too Far Away” and “I’ve Been Waiting for a Girl Like You.” Did I mention that Malin Akerman shows up as a poodle-haired, half-brainy half-horny Rolling Stone journalist? Actually, there’s a lot going on in Rock of Ages , probably too much. The simplicity of the stage show (which originated way off-off-Broadway, in a Hollywood club, in 2005) put the spotlight on the music, for better and sometimes for worse. The movie, made by longtime choreographer-turned-director Adam Shankman (also the man behind the 2007 Hairspray ) is often busier than it needs to be. All that extra business detracts from the modest appeal of the leads: Boneta has some of the scrappy charm of the very young Matt Dillon, and Hough is sunny in a wind-up doll sort of way. Unfortunately, their musical numbers are shot and cut in such a way that it’s hard to actually watch their bodies move — why cast a dancer like Hough if we don’t really get to see her move? Then there’s the Tom Cruise problem. He’s fun to watch in his first few scenes, hamming it up as a spoiled rock’n’roll satyr. But the role quickly becomes a retread of the one he played in Magnolia , only in a different costume. Cruise can’t hide his cockiness — it’s in his blood. But even when he tries to kick back and poke fun at himself, he takes the job so seriously that it becomes a sort of grind. There’s nothing sexy about him, unless you find studied posturing erotic. That said, he does strut quite ably through a version of “Pour Some Sugar on Me” — it’s his best moment, and one of the liveliest bits in the movie. Zeta-Jones might have been used to better effect, considering how dazzling she is in her one big number, a rendition of “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” which she performs in the unsexiest of costumes, a boxy pink suit. Zeta-Jones gets her revenge later, though, when she shows up in one of the sleekest, foxiest getups I’ve seen all year, at long last giving the movie some bite. You’ll get just a glimpse or two, so enjoy it while it lasts. The rest of Rock of Ages is a sprawl whose cheerfulness feels more than a bit calculated. It’s a fake tattoo with the volume turned way, way up. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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REVIEW: Tame Rock of Ages Gets a Slurpy Tongue Bath from Tom Cruise

Pixar Storytelling 101: 22 Rules Hollywood Should Learn

Pixar Animation storyboard artist Emma Coats took to Twitter last month to share the storytelling tips she’s gleaned during her time at the Oscar-winning animation house, and taken together they comprise one of the most comprehensive, sensible, must-follow rules for writing you can find. ( Ridley Scott , Damon Lindelof , whoever’s working on the next Prometheus — are you listening?) Among Coats’ best tips, as collected by blog The Pixar Touch (via i09): “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.” Amen to that. #1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. #2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different. #3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite. #4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. #5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free. #6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal? #7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front. #8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time. #9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up. #10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it. #11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone. #12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself. #13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience. #14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it. #15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations. #16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against. #17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later. #18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining. #19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating. #20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like? #21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way? #22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there. Coats, who has written and directed her own short, Horizon , and is a credited storyboard artist on Brave , is still engaging in storytelling talk over at Twitter and on Tumblr . [ The Pixar Touch via i09 ]

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Pixar Storytelling 101: 22 Rules Hollywood Should Learn

New Characters, No Lapdance — Do Story Changes Make Rock of Ages Better Or Worse?

Fans of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages may throw tomatoes when they see the big screen version; director Adam Shankman , screenwriter Justin Theroux and even Tom Cruise himself made some major changes to the plot of the stage show. Some make the edgy musical more family friendly, but others sharpen the story. Will fans embrace their toned-down Rock of Ages movie? In the film version Cruise stars as Stacee Jaxx , a legendary hair metal rocker with existential issues. Meanwhile, at The Bourbon Room, where Jaxx is performing his last show before going solo, Sherrie ( Julianne Hough ) and Drew (Diego Boneta) are falling in love. Sherrie just moved to L.A. to pursue her dreams; Drew has been paying his dues and gets the chance to open for Jaxx, but the rock n’ roll world splits up the young lovers. But exactly how Rock of Ages unfolds from there differs notably from the Tony-nominated stage musical. Movieline spoke with director Shankman, writer Theroux, and star Hough about five major changes in the Rock of Ages movie, for better and worse. 1. Sherrie and Stacee no longer, uh, do it A major plot point in the stage musical is that Sherrie sleeps with Stacee during the “I Wanna Know What Love Is” number and that’s what leads to her split from Drew. In the movie, the incident is reduced to a misunderstanding involving a spilled bottle of scotch — Drew gets the wrong idea when he sees Stacee zipping up his pants in close proximity to Sherrie — which kinda makes Drew look like a moron. In the stage version, Stacee later comes back to Sherrie when she is working at a gentleman’s club, where she gives him a lap dance. Oddly, Shankman went ahead and shot the lap dance scene with Hough and Cruise, but took it out of the movie. “‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’ was the duet that I did with Tom and it is bad frickin’ ass,” Hough revealed at the Rock of Ages press day. “I mean, literally ass . No literally, this was the sexiest but roughest performance in the movie and I think it was a little bit too much for people. I think that people, especially women, didn’t really like Sherrie after that.” It wasn’t just women, but a very specific group of women, said Shankman. “Super easy to explain,” Shankman said of the scenes that didn’t test well pre-release. “It really upset mothers. The mothers literally turned against her character because her character sold out so much and she was such an animal in the scene. On top of which, where that scene was placed, it was at the top of the third act and you just want her to get to the Bourbon with those records. It was this huge deviation from the story in order to just do this number.” It also makes sense as a story omission because without their sex scene, what’s the point of a lap dance? Shankman said empowering teenage girls in the audience was the most important factor. “The number, frankly, it is on the extended version and will be on Netflix and all that, you’ll understand why it got cut because it really upset mothers,” Shankman said. “I was like, I can’t have mothers saying to their teenage daughters, ‘No, you can’t go see this movie because Julianne Hough is lap dancing Tom Cruise in a G-string — [and doing it] very well.’” 2. Stacee Jaxx’s redemption On stage, Jaxx remains a creep and flees the country dodging statutory rape charges. Not only would this ending be irrelevant to the new story, it would also be a lame and creepy move for a Tom Cruise movie. Now the climax of the film involves Jaxx reading an article written by a reporter (Malin Akerman) in Rolling Stone. For the first time, Jaxx sees how he and his management screwed over hard-working music promoters like the owners of The Bourbon Room. To make amends, Jaxx returns to the Bourbon for a free benefit show, thus paving the way for a real finale where Sherrie and Drew join Jaxx on tour — and giving Cruise’s Jaxx a means of redemption. Screenwriter Justin Theroux credited Cruise himself with the new ending. “That was actually an invention of Tom,” Theroux said. “He was like, ‘This guy needs to connect somewhere at the end of the movie.’ He treats it like it’s a dramatic part and he says, ‘No matter what, you still need to have these motivating factors and you need to have this. There needs to be a beginning, middle and an end to this guy. It can’t just be a guy who’s just floating around being funny. He actually has to have something to perform.’ The character of Stacee Jaxx was looking for something and being so famous that he couldn’t even identify it. That thing is, in our movie, love and someone telling the truth. And then also how do we resolve that in a comedic way? [After] that scene where he’s walking and makes out with a girl on his way to make out with the girl — how would that guy find love? That was really the fun part of creating that.” 3. New songs added, some songs gone Of course, it would be hard for any movie adaptation to keep every single song from its stage iteration, so a few rock classics had to go. Rock of Ages had the unusual problem of obtaining even MORE music than the stage show, and having to make sure to find places for them in the story. “Well, the movie couldn’t be two hours and 40 minutes long, which is basically the show,” Shankman said. “I also had the opportunity that the play didn’t have — Def Leppard, Joan Jett and Guns n’ Roses opened up their catalogs to the movie, which I would have to attribute to Mr. Cruise’s involvement. I never talked to the guys but I would think that that is what sort of did it. On top of which, the Hairspray cred, people knew that I wasn’t going to make fun of anything.” Thanks to that, we now get to hear Cruise sing “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” Worth it. 4. A whole new family values subplot The plot of the stage show involves two developers battling a city planner over a Sunset Strip land deal, a pretty convoluted angle involving the politics of historical landmarks and zoning districts. The movie invents the character of the mayor’s wife (Catherine Zeta Jones), who is protesting The Bourbon Room on moral grounds, as a Christian crusader against rock n’ roll. It’s clean, simple and pays off when the reasons for her repression are revealed. In the film, the mayor’s wife steals the song “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” from her land developer counterparts in the musical; it becomes the anthem for her church protest group. 5. Goodbye, Fourth Wall The biggest change musical buffs will notice is that the movie Rock of Ages has no narrator. The stage show not only had a character narrating the story, but it also broke the fourth wall and addressed the audience. The climax of the stage show had the characters realize some playwright gave them a sad ending, so they go and change it. Meta humor is all well and good but in a movie that might have felt like a cheap cop out. Shankman decided to tell the story linearly, so it has a traditional, feel-good movie plot. The characters succeed because of their own actions, not thanks to some clever meta-device. In taking out the narrator, Shankman decided to make it Sherrie’s story (which also makes it more important that she not lose the audience with her sexual exploits — see #1.). “By taking out the narrator I had to give it the point of view of somebody, and I thought it would be best to give it to the person who’s new to Los Angeles,” Shankman said. Stay tuned for more on Rock of Ages , which opens this Friday. Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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New Characters, No Lapdance — Do Story Changes Make Rock of Ages Better Or Worse?

Russell Brand ROCKS the red carpet of the Rock of Ages premiere — HOLLYWOOD.TV

Hollywood.TV is your source for all the latest celebrity news, gossip and videos of your favorite stars! bit.ly – Click to Subscribe! Facebook.com – Become a Fan! Twitter.com – Follow Us! Russell Brand, Alec Baldwin, Bret Michaels, Gene Simmons, Fergie, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Toby Maguire, and Zac Efron were all rocking the red carpet of the Los Angeles premiere of Rock of Ages, which opened at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The stars of the film took plenty fo time to greet the mob of fans as they entered the premiere, signing autographs, and posing for pictures! Continue reading