Movies

Advantage: Caan.

The writer of Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" claims Mel and his people are playing a shell game with him, trying to avoid paying him his just due on the movie.

Benedict Fitzgerald had sued Mel and others, claiming he was lied to when they said the movie would carry a $4-7 million production budget. Fitzgerald says he accepted a low fee after being told the budget was so low.

But during the case, Mel and his peeps produced accounting records, and the true budget was millions more. In fact, Mel's own calculations put the budget at around $30 million.

But Fitzgerald thinks the amount is even higher, and he's now asking the judge to force a more thorough accounting.

Fitzgerald wants what he considers a fair writer's fee based on the true cost of the movie.

Watch out Robyn -- it's half your money, too.

So much for never growing up...

"What's it like to be the only person to wear the pants in a relationship with Oprah?"

Too bad Whoopi Goldberg was the woman he was shacked up with in the movie ...

See, Billy Bob has a band now ... and he demands to be taken seriously -- as in, Billy demanded that the radio host treat him like he would treat Tom Petty.

Seriously, Billy compared himself to Tom Petty.

It all went down today during a CBC interview -- Jian Ghomeshi, the interviewer, introduced the band -- including a few words about Billy's film career -- which caused Billy to become a massive d-bag for the rest of the interview.

You gotta watch it -- unless you wanna continue to like Billy Bob.

Our photog did ... and was never seen again.

James Caan "has confused himself with his character from the first "Godfather" movie and thinks he can act like a bully..." -- so alleges a film company that Caan sued.

Fish Weir Filmworks has answered Caan's $2 million lawsuit, in which the actor claims the company screwed him out of his fee for a starring role in "The Lightkeepers."

In its answer, Fish Weir attempted to out-prose Caan's lawyer, Marty Singer, by alleging "Caan is an actor whose life and career have had more ups and downs than the average roller coaster...."

Fish Weir claims it never had a contract with Caan. The company's lawyer gratuitously mentioned that Caan has had 3 divorces and after one of them "he moved into the Playboy Mansion to 'recover.'"

For the record, the answer doesn't hold a candle to the complaint, in which Singer alleged Fish Weir "like some miscreant characters from the hit televison drama 'Las Vegas,' thought they could pull one over on Caan and get away with it."