Ritchie says marriage is 'fine'

Film director Guy Ritchie has brushed off speculation about his marriage to Madonna in a US magazine interview.

The 39-year-old Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels director told People: "My marriage is fine as far as I'm aware of."

The singer and her spokesperson have repeatedly denied reports that the couple were planning a divorce.

London-born Ritchie told the magazine his marriage to Madonna had enabled him to look at the capital with fresh eyes.

"I was born there and I've seen it change and I know a great deal about it, I'm invested," he told People.

"I live vicariously through my wife, so I was once a spy and now I've become a tourist, and it's much more fun to live in London as a tourist than it is as a spy."

Ritchie was talking to People at a convention in San Diego, California, to promote his new film, London gangster picture RocknRolla, which is due for release in the UK in September and the US in October.

His two most recent films, Swept Away - starring Madonna - and Revolver, were panned by critics.

Meanwhile, Madonna, 49, is in New York rehearsing for her forthcoming world tour, which begins in August.

Ritchie's next film is a version of Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr as the English detective.
BY-BBC NEWS

Stones ditching EMI for Universal

The Rolling Stones have signed an "exclusive, long-term, worldwide" record deal with music giant Universal, the record company has announced.

The contract covers future albums by the veteran rockers as well as their extensive back catalogue.

Their previous deal with EMI ended in March after 31 years together.

The Stones, fronted by Mick Jagger, had already released a live CD in March - recorded in New York in 2006 - with Universal in a one-album deal.

That album accompanied Martin Scorsese's documentary Shine a Light, which featured footage of two shows played in New York in 2006 as well as behind-the-scenes and archive material.

New recordings will be released through Universal's Polydor label.

BY-BBC NEWS

Hollywood's digital graduation

Click's editor Richard Taylor investigates how Hollywood is beginning to change the way it distributes and allows people to watch its films.

Film studios are beginning to embrace digital delivery

Two years ago Click reported on Hollywood's struggle to beat illegal downloaders.

At the time its primary impulse was to aggressively pursue the offenders inhabiting the so-called "darknet", the internet underground.

But the studios' will to sell and distribute its content digitally over the internet appeared to be half-hearted at best.

There were a few American-based sites offering poor-value packages which restricted how you could transfer the content, but that was about it.

BY-BBC NEWS