Veteran producer Branko Lustig survived the Holocaust, but he couldn't put up with Russell Crowe, who threatened during a 3 a.m. phone call to "kill you with my bare hands." Lustig promptly (well, maybe not at 3 a.m.) called DreamWorks honcho Steven Spielberg and asked out of "Gladiator." The incident, chronicled in Nicole LaPorte's "The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies and a Company Called DreamWorks," apparently was sparked by Crowe's assertions that his assistants weren't being paid a fair wage. The book also reveals Crowe's reluctance to utter "And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." He complained to director Ridley Scott that the line was overwrought (well, yes; it was "Gladiator"), but was persuaded to give it a try. Afterward, he said, "It was [crap], but I'm the greatest actor in the world I can make even [crap] sound good." Crowe, on a publicity tour for May 14's "Robin Hood," Tweeted that the book is "distances from the truth" and "a waste of paper." We guess even he can't make tweets sound good.
