ALISON BOSHOFF: Is Nicola Peltz's film career being financed by the Bank of Daddy?

Nicola Peltz Beckham's film career is a riddle wrapped in an enigma.

Her first starring role was in the stripper drama Lola – which she also wrote and directed. It grossed a total of $648 at the box office when it was released in February 2024, and got a loud raspberry from the critics.

You might think that would have put the brakes on her movie career.

Yet since that embarrassing flop she has made a crime thriller – Pretty Ugly – in which she stars (again), though it has yet to be released.

And she is currently working on a big screen ballet drama called Prima. That features the legendary Oscar-winning actress Faye Dunaway as her grandmother, and other well-known names including Mira Sorvino.

But the leading lady is... Nicola Peltz Beckham. She also provided the 'story and character' – but not the script. And she isn't directing this time.

All three movies have been made by a company called Bunny Films, on small budgets (it is believed in the $2million to $5million range).

But because Bunny Films is based in Delaware – a 'business friendly' state – company details are not publicly available.

However friends of the Peltzes confirm that Nicola's billionaire father Nelson is financially involved in the film company.

Prima is being directed by Italian photographers Luca and Alessandro Morelli, known as 'the Morelli brothers'. They don't have a background in film but have previously done shoots with Nicola and her husband Brooklyn Beckham, including the cover of Glamour magazine in June last year.

A synopsis of the film states: 'Prima follows Margo (Peltz Beckham), a prima ballerina raised by her disciplinarian grandmother (Faye Dunaway), who begins to unravel when the head of her ballet company (Jack Huston) marries a contemporary choreographer (Betty Gabriel), disrupting the company's tradition and igniting a power struggle that threatens the future of the institution.'

Nicola was extremely close to her grandmother Gina, known as Naunni or Bunny, and was heartbroken when she died in 2024, aged 95. Brooklyn got a tattoo of a bunny on his arm, as a mark of support for his wife.

Gina had served as the maid of honour at Nicola and Brooklyn's wedding, and sat on their top table.

The wedding, of course, was a flashpoint for the Peltz and Beckham clans, with a schism developing after disagreements about the bride's dress (not made by her fashion designer mother-in-law Victoria Beckham), and the groom's 'first dance' (with his mother, after she was invited to join him by the singer Marc Anthony).

Brooklyn complained in an 800-word diatribe on Instagram last week that the dance left him 'humiliated' and 'embarrassed'; and accused his parents of trying to 'ruin' his relationship with his wife.

He says he doesn't want to reconcile with them. They have made no comment.

Despite the tensions, the whole Beckham clan turned up to the premiere of Lola to support Nicola Peltz Beckham. She has since scrubbed her Instagram of every picture of them.

The young couple have had a do-over wedding – excluding the Beckhams – and just before Christmas, Brooklyn blocked his parents on social media.

It was revealed in this column earlier in January that he had told them to contact him only via lawyers as relations worsened last summer.

David needled about Brooklyn tattoo 

Jimmy Gulzar, Mel B's ex, is making mischief over the whole Brooklyn Beckham eruption.

Last week Jimmy, pictured with Victoria and Mel, wrote on Instagram: 'Yo David. Remember the fun when you came to my house for your first tattoo? The birthdate of your firstborn. Left side, lower back. One thing was, you and Vicky couldn't remember the date, so Vicky had to call her mum. Nothing in your book or docu about it. How come?'

Neither David nor Victoria Beckham have commented. And in case you're wondering, Brooklyn's birthday is March 4, 1999.

Third time lucky for Olivia, as her new movie becomes the toast of Sundance

Irish-American actress Olivia Wilde has made a sensational comeback with her new movie The Invite.

The film, which is a Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?-style tale of two couples at a dinner party, is the hit of Sundance, and has just sold to super indie A24. It was shot over 23 consecutive days in LA.

Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton play a polyamorous pair invited to supper by their downstairs neighbours (Wilde and Seth Rogen), whose marriage is teetering on the brink. But then the cool couple from upstairs issue an invite of their own.

The critics have been raving about its originality (though it's a remake of a Spanish film called Sentimental) and it looks to have buried the controversy surrounding Don't Worry Darling – Wilde's difficult second film.

You may remember on that one, back in 2022, she was the director and romanced lead actor Harry Styles. She apparently fell out with his co-star Florence Pugh, leading to a press tour of unrivalled awkwardness.

Pssssst...

Hostilities continue between the late singer Amy Winehouse's mother and ex mother-in-law. 

Letting Blake Go, a book published in 2009 by Georgette Fielder-Civil, mother of Amy's one-time husband Blake, can now be purchased for £450 on Amazon. Janis Winehouse, 71, sniffs: 'I wouldn't pay that and I haven't read it. But I might use it to prop something up with.'

Kanye West wants us to believe he is a changed man – see the full page advert in the Wall Street Journal apologising for his anti-Semitism, a precursor to announcing a record deal and new album.

Not everything has changed, though. Friends dining at the Chateau Marmont last week say he and wife Bianca were among those eating on the patio, with Bianca in an ensemble which left her buttocks completely bare.

There has been considerable backlash over Amazon's $40 million vanity documentary about President Trump's wife, Melania. Ellen von Unwerth took the arresting pictures being used to sell the film, which opens today. She deleted, then re-instated, her Instagram this week after online criticism.

Egghead Richard Osman loves doing celeb quiz shows, but he says: 'I never tell a charity if I'm on beforehand.

'I did Celebrity Catchphrase [in 2019] and finished the board at the end. You're able to ring someone who runs a little charity and say: "There's fifty-seven grand coming..." I mean, what a dream.'

Lisa Faulkner says her (now largely unemployed) husband John Torode gets on her last nerve when he helps her to rehearse for her stage work.

She reveals: 'He helps me learn my lines for Single White Female – and insists on reading all the stage directions, as well as the actual lines of the character played by my co-star Kym Marsh.

'I say to him: "John, please just the lines, not the stage directions!"

'He's brilliant and helpful but, oh my God, he makes me want to get Kym to do it!'

Former Holby City star Lisa, pictured with John, plays the unwitting Allie, to Kym Marsh's disturbed Hedy, in an adaptation of the 1992 big screen psycho-thriller that starred Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Single White Female is on tour from next week, starting at the Grand Opera House in York on February 3 and finishing at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow in June.

Netflix passes on Meghan's cookies

Meghan was very much front and centre at the launch of the Cookie Queens documentary – about Girl Scouts selling cookies – at the Sundance film festival this week.

Although both she and Prince Harry showed up for the gala screening, only Meghan, pictured, spoke beforehand and she introduced the director.

And when the credits ran? Yes, 'Meghan, Duchess of Sussex' was credited on screen as a producer above her husband, 'Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex'. It's the kind of pecking order which seasoned Hollywood pros would go to war over.

However a source says we should not read anything into the former actress's apparent dominance over her husband. They add that Meghan was a Girl Scout herself, so the project was particularly meaningful to her.

A couple of years ago the pair began a process of professional separation, with Meghan pursuing her TV and lifestyle career and Prince Harry leaning into his philanthropic work.

I understand that Meghan and Harry only came onboard the Cookie Queens project in December – long after it was conceived, filmed and edited. Both serve as 'executive producers'.

Meghan spoke about how the experience of selling cookies was empowering for young girls. But there is some controversy about the pressure to sell; families have to buy boxes first, and can take a financial hit if they can't sell them on the doorstep.

I also understand Netflix (which has a 'first look' deal with the Sussexes) have passed on Cookie Queens.

Sources close to the couple insist there is a lot of interest in the documentary. They also deny that their head of factual programmes, Chanel Pysnik, is now eyeing the exit from their production company.

A report from Sundance suggested that Ms Pysnik was sending out feelers for other jobs while in town.

Prince Harry and Meghan have an infamous churn rate on their staff.