Academy Awards: Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman to win an Oscar for best director

By Anthony Venutolo/The Star-Ledger

GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images"

The Hurt Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow has won the Oscar for best director, become the first woman ever to achieve the top honor.Above, Bigelow arrives at the 82nd annual Academy Awards Nominee Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on February 15, 2010.

"The Hurt Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow has won the Oscar for best director, becoming the first woman ever to achieve the top honor at the Academy Awards.

While her best best-known films were such fare as the vampire pic "Near Dark" and the Patrick Swayze surfing drama "Point Break," the critically-acclaimed "The Hurt Locker" has put Bigelow into a different stratosphere.

She was the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America award for outstanding directorial achievement in a motion picture for "The Hurt Locker." She also won the best director prize at the 2010 British Academy Film Awards.

She was nominated for a Golden Globe but ex-husband James Cameron took the prize for his 3D sci-fi epic "Avatar."

Bigelow was the first female to win a BAFTA Award for best direction and fourth ever to be nominated for an Oscar after Lina Wertmüller for "Seven Beauties" in 1976, Jane Campion for "The Piano" in 1993 and Sofia Coppola for "Lost in Translation" in 2003.

"The Hurt Locker" follows a United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team during the Iraq War and stars Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty and best actor nominee Jeremy Renner. They star as members of a U.S. Army EOD unit in Iraq and the film tells of their tour together as they contend with defusing bombs and the threat of insurgency.

Bigelow shot in the Middle East, specifically in Jordan, within miles of the Iraq border

Bruce Willis Walks Away from Directorial Debut

Three Stories About Joan, which was to have been the directing debut of Bruce Willis, has recently experienced big financial woes, I'm told. A recent confrontation between Willis, who's also one of the film's producers, and producers Mark Damon and Moshe Diamant led to Willis walking off the film, according to a source in New Orleans who heard rumblings about the Shreveport-based production a week ago.

Bruce Willis

Willis could always come back and finish the job, of course. This could be just an interlude.

The film is reportedly a $20 million psychological thriller about three stories affecting the fate of a woman named Joan (Camilla Belle) that Willis was to have costarred in along with Owen Wilson (according to an IMDB casting rumor) and Keiran Culkin. The screenplay is by Christopher Alexander and Sam Applebaum.

A Louisiana tax credit guy confided to a source that local investors recently decided to "back out of the Bruce Willis film because it scared us. I don't think the money was all there."

Willis had the same concerns, he says, and things got to a point in which he allegedly told Damon, "Okay this is a $20 milion movie, but where's the money? I'm supposed to get $5 million, but all I want right now to make sure things are okay is to see $100 thousand in my bank account tomorrow. Make that happen and I'll believe you."

The next day there was no money so Willis got on a plane and said, "See ya."

Camilla Belle

The rumor is that Damon is suing. Naturally. Anyone in his position would to the same. Better to suggest that the real trouble is an uncooperative director-actor than admit that one's finances aren't entirely in order.

The IMDB says Three Stories About Joan was supposed to be in pre-production as of 9.23.

Willis co-produced with his brother David Willis and Stephen J,. Eads under the banner of his recently launched production company, Willis Bros. Films. Damon's production company is called Foresight Unlimited.