The Beatles legend - who sang the title track for hit 1973 Bond film Live and Let Die - thinks troubled singer Amy has the perfect voice for a theme
song, and offered some advice to her.

He said: “I think Amy Winehouse would be really good, and I think she would do a really good job. My advice to her would be not to try and rhyme Solace with anything - that’s too hard.”

Paul also said despite being responsible for one of the most popular Bond tunes of all time, he wouldn’t want to have the responsibility again.

He added: “I definitely wouldn’t do it again. I have been trying to think of something to rhyme with Solace and all I can come up with is Wallace! I don’t envy whoever is going to do the song!”

Other singers who have recorded a 007 theme tune include, Dame Shirley Bassey, Tina Turner, Sir Tom Jones, Carly Simon and Lulu.

Work on Heath Ledger’s last film, suspended due to his death by accidental overdose in January, has resumed after three Hollywood stars agreed to play his character, director Terry Gilliam said on Monday.

Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law will step in to complete Ledger’s unfinished role in the movie “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” which is due for release next year.

“Since the format of the story allows for the preservation of his entire performance, at no point will Heath’s work be modified or altered through the use of digital technology,” said the film’s producers in a statement.

“Each of the parts played by Johnny, Colin and Jude is representative of the many aspects of the character that Heath was playing.”

Gilliam said filming on the British-Canadian production had resumed in Vancouver “with the blessing and support of Heath Ledger’s family”.

Ledger had just finished shooting scenes for the movie in London before his death. Newspapers have reported that the story involves a magical mirror that takes people into different dimensions, allowing Gilliam to switch between actors.

“I am delighted that Heath’s brilliant performance can be shared with the world,” Gilliam said.

“We are looking forward to finishing the movie and, through the film, with a modicum of humility, being able to touch people’s hearts and souls as Heath was able to do.”

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is described as a modern-day fantasy adventure and has a budget estimated at $30 million.

Camilla Belle offers a girlish laugh when asked what her costumes were made from in the film “10,000 B.C.”: Real or faux fur?

“I don’t know; I think it was some kind of cloth,” says Belle. “I do know they didn’t smell very good by the time we were done.”

In “10,000 B.C.,” which opened Friday, Belle plays Evolet, a member of a primitive tribe of woolly mammoth hunters who is kidnapped into slavery. Even as she struggles to survive and escape, she is being tracked by her true love, D’Leh (Steven Strait), who must rescue her against impossible odds while confronting a more advanced civilization.

The lavish production blends live action with elaborate computer-generated graphics of prehistoric beasts, from sabre-tooth tigers to predatory birds - part buzzard, part pterodactyl - which chase Belle at one point.

The movie also took Belle, 21, from New Zealand to South Africa to Namibia. Each location was chosen for unique physical characteristics: New Zealand for its snowy mountains, South Africa for its jungle, Namibia for its desert.

“That’s what made the experience quite fulfilling,” says Belle. “Africa was someplace I’d dreamed about seeing, and then I got to go there for four months.”

Belle, whose mother is Brazilian, speaks Portuguese and Spanish, as well as English. She worked from childhood until she was 13, appearing in, among other things, Alfonso Cuaron’s “A Little Princess.”

Then she took three years off to focus on school, returning to film at 16 to play Daniel Day-Lewis’ daughter in “The Ballad of Jack and Rose.”

Accepted at Columbia University, she postponed college to pursue her career. “It’s something you have to grasp while you have the moment. You have to grab it full force and hope it doesn’t go away.”

Having finished another film to be released this year (”Push,” opposite Djimon Hounsou, Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning), Belle doesn’t have another movie that’s set to go. She takes pride in her ability to pull back from her career between films and live a normal life.

“Work isn’t reality,” she says. “Luckily, my personal life is so fulfilling that I’ve never felt that I have to have another job lined up.

“Don’t get me wrong - I want to work again. But to me it’s fun not to know what I’m going to do next.”

Justin Timberlake is looking to bring viewers back to NBC.

The pop star is teaming with Reveille, the production company behind Ugly Betty and The Office, to bring the hit Peruvian comedy My Problem with Women to the Peacock net, NBC confirmed Friday.

Timberlake will serve as an executive producer on the project, which is based on Peru’s Mi Problema con las Mujeres, a show that launched in July and has since been sold in 20 countries.

“I am very excited to be collaborating with Reveille to bring this hugely successful format to NBC,” the singer said in a statement.

In other Timberlake news, Mr. SexyBack will be inducting none other than Madonna into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Monday. The duo recently collaborated on the Queen of Pop’s upcoming album, Hard Candy, which is due out on Apr. 28.

Up ahead, Timberlake stars in the comedy The Love Guru, opposite Mike Myers and Jessica Alba. The film is slated for a June 20 release.

He is currently filming the drama The Open Road, opposite Jeff Bridges and Kate Mara.

It was up, up and away at the boxoffice in 2007. Boxoffice swelled at home and abroad — but so did the costs of making and marketing movies, which grew at an even faster rate.

Domestic boxoffice returns from the U.S. and Canada hit a record $9.6 billion last year, a 5.4% increase over 2006, according to the final figures released Wednesday by the MPAA in its annual state-of-the-business report, which for the first time it compiled in partnership with Nielsen EDI. The figure represents grosses for all commercial releases in North America, not just those of the MPAA companies.

The story was much the same around the world as international boxoffice for all commercial moviegoing hit $17.1 billion, up nearly 5% from 2006. That brought the worldwide boxoffice total for 2007 to a record $26.7 billion. The MPAA companies’ portion of that total international tally of $17.1 billion in grosses was nearly $9.5 billion.

“All in all, 2007 proved a healthy year at the boxoffice,” MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said. “We had a very good year domestically,” while the international returns were “also bullish.”

But though more money was flowing into Hollywood, more money also was flowing out.

The studios’ investment in the average movie’s negative cost rose to $70.8 million from $65.8 million in 2006. And since the MPAA doesn’t include the outside investment money that the studios now routinely solicit to co-finance many of their films in that calculation, the average production cost of a movie actually is substantially higher than that.

At the same time, the average marketing costs on a film rose from $34.5 million in 2006 to $35.9 million in 2007. As a result, the total average negative and marketing figure also hit a record: a forbidding $106.6 million.

The outlays on the part of the studios’ specialty divisions were even more dramatic. While the divisions that turn out potential Oscar winners — such as Disney’s Miramax, Paramount’s Vantage, Universal’s Focus and Fox’s Searchlight — may concentrate on producing, acquiring and releasing “smaller” movies, in their case, small is a relative term.

The subsidiaries’ average negative investment in 2007 rose to $49.2 million, while average marketing costs soared to $25.7 million. The total negative and marketing cost of the average specialty film soared to $74.8 million, up more than 54% over the comparable 2006 figure of $48.5 million.