Here's a test for you. Take a pen, get a piece of paper and write down - right now - the top three movie star partnerships you'd like to see. Any combination you like - it can be DiCaprio/Cage, Jackman/Pitt, or Natalie Portman and Lucy Liu (steady now), for example.
Done that? Good. Now, did anyone write down 'Robert De Niro and 50 Cent'? Nope. Didn't think so. But it hasn't stopped Hollywood types from MAKING IT HAPPEN!
Yes, indeed. The man who said 'Are you talkin' to me?' is going to team up with the man who said, and we quote, 'I'm into having sex, I ain't into making love/So come give me a hug if you into to getting rubbed'.
Beautiful. This is clearly a match made in heaven. The film that's bringing these two titans together is entitled New Orleans, a cop thriller set in... well, you can work it out.
De Niro will play a cop who finds out that his partner, whom he thought had died in Hurricane Katrina, was actually shot to death. Along with his new partner (played by Fiddy), he investigates what went down and discovers corruption. Lots of it.
Now, we may have given the impression that we're not terribly excited about this project. That's probably because we're not terribly excited about this project - and not just because we're a little appalled to find that the movie's location was moved from LA to New Orleans AFTER Katrina (they'd better have a damn good reason for doing so).
Don't get us wrong - 50 Cent is a great rapper but, as the lamentable Get Rich Or Die Tryin' proved, he's no actor, while De Niro has taken to sleepwalking his way through movies of late. It's unlikely that working with Mr. Cent will fuel his creative fires, but stranger things have happened.