Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie is in Los Angeles prepping production on her new film — The Tourist, co-starring Johnny Depp, where she plays an American tourist used by an Interpol agent in an attempt to flush out a criminal with whom she once had an affair.

Last month, she was back in New York shooting key scenes for the final version of her upcoming Spy Thriller “Salt“.  There were rumors that the film had been going through a heavy re-editing between its director, Phillip Boyce and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, forcing Jolie back on the set to redo several key scenes, including the climax. A spokesman for Sony Pictures quickly denied those claims and insists the executives are satisfied with the finished project.

“Production was completed last fall. We did return to shoot some additional action sequences in New York during the last several days. The filmmakers and the studio couldn’t be more happy with the results and look forward to the release this summer.”

The trailer came out and was quickly circulated across blogs with enthusiasm.

Rumors are obviously something Angelina Jolie has had to deal with throughout her professional career. They are nothing new to the Oscar Winning actress who’s combated rumors on all fronts. Her souring relationship with her father, Jon Voight. Her alleged insecurities over losing husband Brad Pitt to his ex- Jennifer Aniston. Just today, a rumor surfaced that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had signed a divorce contract. Its not true.

Jolie tells the tabloids that she doesn’t read them.

It’s hard to imagine she doesn’t when the tabloids just recently got a hold of her Facebook page and rattled off the names of all her facebook friends (A-Listers including Orlando Bloom and Jessica Alba were among her friends).

She’s led a sort of duel life for a star. There’s the Angelina Jolie currently the subject of a newly released tell-all tale by celebrity biographer Ian Halperin, that claims she runs her household with servants with  not an inkling of understanding of what her children are up to. Those are the rumors, and then there are the facts.

Angelina Jolie does dish out on Jennifer Aniston and their magazine cover rivalry is obviously not a fabrication. She’s called some of Jennifer Aniston’s comments hurtful in the past, which even prompted boyfriend Brad Pitt to get in the middle of a recent tryst between herself and Aniston.

Her life seems to be the kernel on which the gossip magazine industry stands.

For example,  Angelina’s twins. Perhaps last years biggest celebrity story.

Were they in-vitro  fertilized?  Did People magazine pay 10 million dollars for those first photographs? Then there was her dastardly escape from the paparazzi onto an exotic island that saw her and the kids jumping on a hospital rooftop into a helicopter and out of sight from the thousands of paparazzi staked out in front of the hospital where she just gave birth to Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline (Named after her mother).

It seems she is so aware of the media saturation that comes with whatever she does, after giving birth, she made sure the domain names for her newborns, VivienneMarcheline.com and KnoxLeon.com were purchased before anyone else could.

That’s the Angelina Jolie that we know on the daily gossip rumormill. The Angelina Jolie on the playground with her children, taking them to McDonalds or standing before the paparazzi at Cannes in a stunning new pink dress, arm tucked between Brad Pitts on the red carpet as hundreds of cameras snap..snap..snap away, and gossip columnists collecting tidbits on her backstage shenanigans. Who was she talking to? What was her behavior like? Did she reveal anything? Who else was there? What did they say?

That is one side of Angelina Jolie that we see.

The other Angelina is the silver screen movie starlet that has accomplished the unfathomable during her lifetime.

It seems quite a while ago, that she was just a fresh faced actress in a low budget sci-fi action flick.

Her first film role was a movie called Cyborg 2 which she says she is proud of, given that it was her first starring role. It’s laughable that a huge movie star like Angelina Jolie once starred in a film called Cyborg 2. But it wouldn’t be long before she’d turn into a box office sensation starring in the blockbusters The Bone Collector and Gone in 60 Seconds, which made more than $112 million dollars in rentals alone.

Two summers ago, she starred in the smash hit Wanted with James Convoy. That film grossed $134 million dollars. When you match her film success up against Jennifer Aniston’s film success, Angelina Jolie’s box office muscle really shines. While Jennifer Aniston has had major successes, and industry experts agree her box office prowress has dramatically escalated in the wake of last year’s $25 million opening weekend for Me & Mr. Marley, followed by another $100 million  grosser “He’s Just Not That Into You”, Angelina Jolie has already proven herself over and over again to the studios and their bottom line. Period.

She can really open a film.

She opened Wanted with a whopping $50 million at the box office. She opened Mr. and Mrs. Smith with $50 million. On average,  Jolie opens a film at $15 million dollars (and that factors in all the small, independent films that she’s done)Her appeal on an international level can’t be ignored. A quick look at her past films shows us staggering worldwide grosses.

Changeling - $113 million. Wanted – $340 million . Kungfu Panda $631 million . Beowolf made $194 million . Mr. and Mrs. Smith $468 million . Alexander $167 million . Sharktale – $357 million. Tomb Raider II – $156 million . Tomb Raider – $274 million.

Overall, Angelina Jolie’s films have brought in $3.4 billion worldwide.

Next up for Angelina Jolie, she enters the role of Kay Scarpetta who stars in the bestselling  Patricia Cornwell’s novels, as a forensic examiner in Virginia who  is charged with solving murder mysteries. The screenplay will draw on all of Cornwell’s stories instead of just being based on one novel.  It will mark a new franchise for Jolie to helm, much like the lengthy Jason Bourne series for Matt Damon. There are already 17 bestselling novel’s in the Kay Scarpatta series. It will be her first franchise since the Tomb Raider films.

And then its more pre-production work on The Tourist with Johnny Depp in Los Angeles…

Then Salt is scheduled for release in July…So its another whirlwind media tour

She just wrapped up another Vanity Fair shoot.

And she’s reading those Kay Scarpetta novels to get in character for the upcoming role…

And, she may be moving the family to Brazil, to work around Brad’s schedule.

She’s picking out her Oscar dress, knowing very well how much it will be scrutinized…

And she just wrote an article for Newsweek – she’s a UN Ambassador after all.

She went shopping with girls at Whole Foods.

She squeezed in time to appear on the recent Haiti telethon that raised over 57 million internationally…

She whipped out her checkbook and wrote one for 1 million.

Then she and Brad wrote another check for one million to Doctor’s Without Borders to help struggling third world nations seeking medical assistance.

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