EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Crime does pay! Director Guy Ritchie, 55, pockets £13 ... trends now
He's blessed with a glamorous wife, not to mention a glorious Georgian manor house set in 1,134-acres on the Wiltshire-Dorset border, from where his own brewery supplies the beer for both his London pub and the restaurant at the vintage airfield he acquired last year.
But just when you thought that life couldn't get much sweeter for Guy Ritchie, I can disclose that he'll be tucking into his Easter eggs with a particularly satisfied smile – having trousered £13million.
That's the dividend Ritchie, 55, treated himself to in the last financial year, courtesy of Toff Guy Films, the company he established back in 2004 when married to his first wife, Madonna.
At the time, cynics suggested that his career would be a two-hit wonder, limited to his Bafta-winning debut, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and its equally dazzling follow-up, Snatch.
Guy Ritchie and his wife Jacqui Ainsley attend the Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood UK Premiere at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on July 30, 2019, in London
Ritchie's glorious Georgian manor house set in 1,134-acres on the Wiltshire-Dorset border, from where his own brewery supplies the beer for both his London pub and the restaurant at the vintage airfield he acquired last year
Guy Ritchie with Madonna at the film premiere of Snatch in Los Angeles in 2001
His third film, Swept Away, starring Madonna, was released in 2002. It was a disaster – both critically and commercially. So was his fourth, Revolver, three years later, despite boasting Jason Statham in the lead role.
But friends felt that there was only really one factor impeding Ritchie: an ill-starred marriage. 'I felt a film shoot would last longer than the marriage,' recalls one of them, arguing that, while Ritchie remained with Madonna, he was reduced to a desperate, supporting role.
'You can't really be married to a superstar and produce your best. It never works. You just end up as the bag carrier. I knew that, once he shed those shackles, he would do extremely well. He's a huge talent. Got a great eye for what makes a movie rock.'
Ritchie and Madonna divorced in 2008, the year when he was hired, as second choice, to direct Sherlock Holmes – a massive box-office success when released the following year, as was its sequel in 2011.
Next month, Ritchie who in 2015 married model Jacqui Ainsley, with whom he has two sons and a daughter, celebrates the US release of his latest film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – only weeks after the end of his acclaimed Netflix crime series, The Gentlemen, itself a spin-off from his hit film of the same name.
Remind me, what's Madonna up to these days?
Give James Bond back his licence to amuse, pleads Sir Jonathan Pryce, who played a baddie opposite Pierce Brosnan in 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies.
'I think they were trying to keep up with other action ventures like the [Jason] Bourne series,' he says.
Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, Pryce adds: 'Daniel Craig did a fantastic job, but I'd like a little bit of levity back in it.'
Sir Jonathan Pryce played a baddie opposite Pierce Brosnan in 1997 Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (pictured)
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld appears to have found directing Hugh Grant in his Netflix film, Unfrosted, a challenge.
'You should have heard us screaming at each other on set,' Seinfeld says.
'I was saying to him: "You don't know anything about comedy. You just know how to be witty in a pub. Here in America, we've got to get real laughs."
'He'd scream back: "I know a lot
