* Russell Crowe's chances of being the next James Bond look to have been shot down in flames.
Little-known Scottish actor Gerard Butler is being wooed to play the next Bond when Pierce Brosnan gives up the role after his fourth movie. That goes into production in January, the Edinburgh Daily
Record newspaper said yesterday.
The tabloid said series producer Barbara Broccoli was determined to have another Scottish Bond - following in the footsteps of screen legend Sean Connery.
It said she had fixed up a meeting with 32-year-old Butler to discuss the role.
"Gerard is one of the two people Barbara has appointments with," a source told the paper. "They are meeting to discuss replacing Pierce after his final movie."
It added that Broccoli was also meeting Colin Wells, who had served as a stand-in Bond for Brosnan during screen tests for other actors.
Meanwhile, Crowe has been accused of "hitting on" Sarah Ferguson at a recent benefit concert in Milan.
While performing at a concert benefiting Fergie's charity, Children in Crisis, he dedicated a song called Somebody Else's Princess to the formerly royal redhead.
She was there with Italian boyfriend Gaddo Della Gherardesca.
When asked whether he was "flirting wildly" with Fergie, Crowe's spokeswoman said: "Sarah's the sort of person who doesn't mind a little flirting."
* These days, Eminem is making more appearances in court than on stage. Yesterday the rap star pleaded no contest to a weapons charge stemming from an argument with members of a rival Detroit rap group.
Oakland County, Michigan, Circuit Court Judge Denise Langford Morris said she was not now considering jail time, but that could change after she reviewed the case.
Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III but who likes to call himself Slim Shady, will be sentenced on June 5 in the Oakland County case.
On April 10, he pleaded guilty to a weapons charge in Macomb County Circuit Court and received two years' probation.
Eminem will get back on stage in August when he returns to Britain to headline at one of the country's biggest musical festivals - the Gig on the Green event in Glasgow on August 25 and 26.
* Michael Blake has written a sequel to Dances with Wolves, the basis for the 1990 Kevin Costner epic that went on to win several Academy Awards.
Titled The Holy Road, film rights were snatched up by Pacifica Film Development, and Blake will be on board again to write the script.
The novel takes place 10 years later when the end is near for the Plains Indians as the white man encroaches. The wife and youngest child of John Dunbar (aka Dances with Wolves) are abducted and he sets out to save them.
No word yet on whether the star will reprise his role.
* An unidentified male bidder has paid a reported $US13,800 ($34,040) for Madonna's underwear in an online auction.
A spokesman for the Leland auction house, which generally handles sports memorabilia, told the New York Post that 50,000 people visited his firm's website on the day of the sale.
The bidder now owns the black-leather bra-and-panties that Madonna modelled in her 1985 book Sex, back when she was a pre-maternal girl.
- NZPA
* Russell Crowe's chances of being the next James Bond look to have been shot down in flames.
Little-known Scottish actor Gerard Butler is being wooed to play the next Bond when Pierce Brosnan gives up the role after his fourth movie. That goes into production in January, the Edinburgh Daily
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