Despite the recent drama at EMI (massive lay-offs and restructuring), which resulted in at least one marquee artist — Robbie Williams — threatening to hold his album hostage, not all of the label's major acts are considering a walk-out. Fellow international superstar Kylie Minogue tells Hollywood Insider she has no plans to seek out a deal like Madonna's LiveNation pact. "I don't like to commit myself for however many years," she says. "Rather than take a big chunk of the cake, I go slowly." But with a new album to promote (X, due out in March), Minogue does admit the label turmoil has affected her world. "It's so demoralizing for the team. At the rate we're going, I'll be the only one at the record company!"
Is two-time Dancing With the Stars winner Julianne Hough (pictured) trading in her paso doble heels for cowboy boots? Though next season's Dancing lineup has yet to be announced, the 19-year-old Mormon wonder has just signed a multi-album deal with Mercury Nashville, the Universal Music Nashville label that is headed by country music veteran Luke Lewis and home to Shania Twain and Sugarland. Hough's first single is expected to drop sometime in February, with an album due out in late spring or early summer. Hough (who is managed by another music biz legend, Irving Azoff) is currently living in Nashville where she's been recording with David Malloy (Reba McEntire, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band). According to a music city insider, the two "have already cut half the record" and Hough is planning to try her hand at writing songs. Here's hoping she'll have better luck in the major label system than recent American Idol winners.
Fox Searchlight confirmed today that Sam Raimi is attached to direct the Nicole Kidman-starring drama, Rabbit Hole. The film is not yet a go but the parts are slowly moving into place. Based on David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play, which earned Cynthia Nixon a 2006 Tony Award, the project centers on a happily married couple whose lives are shattered by an unexpected tragedy. The two take an emotional, redemptive journey to regain their happiness. The movie would mark quite a departure for the director most closely associated with the Spider-Man juggernaut. Then again, Raimi did direct the 1999 Kevin Costner film For the Love of the Game; perhaps his journey will be a redemptive one as well.
It looks like Fox Atomic had such a good time making next year's Rainn Wilson-starring comedy The Rocker with producer Shawn Levy and his 21 Laps production company that they are doing it again. Now Levy & Co. will help produce the Fox subsid's next comedy, Space Invader, starring Will Arnett as the aviophobic son of a NASA legend who must overcome his fears to win back his girlfriend. Arnett, best known for his role as Gob in the beloved-but-canceled Arrested Development, has yet to show that he's a box office force. (His last two movies, The Brothers Solomon and Let's Go to Prison, both performed dismally.) Perhaps the help of Levy, who scored big last year directing and producing the Ben Stiller-topped Night at the Museum, will reverse that trend. Fido's Andrew Currie will direct.
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