Will Singleton's suspicion come back to pimp-slap Stephanie Allain and Craig Brewer (above)? (Photo: STV)

The Daily News' Lloyd Grove has an item today about a very frustrated John Singleton, who evidently is trying to track down a Paramount Classics mole he suspects leaked Hustle and Flow to the bootleg DVD market. According to Grove, cops in eight cities--including New York--have confiscated as many as 2,500 pirated copies of Craig Brewer's pimp-hop hit. Singleton suspects the leak came from inside Paramount because the studio did not distribute screeners out-of-house.

As an anonymous "Lowdown spy" tied to Hustle told Grove:

"The stars of the movie really were disappointed that something like this could happen from the studio. The film is still an independent, despite the fact that Paramount distributes it. It's like the system f-ed us over. ... We got to fight this stuff, man. They are taking money from us. They're working the Oscar campaign on Hustle, and we can't have people inside the system working against the film."

First of all, Hustle's multi-million dollar budget--as well as its Singleton affiliation--has all but disqualified its "independent" status since well before Sundance. A few thousand bootlegs do not have a terrific impact on an $8 million opening-weekend gross, and I doubt any popular bootleg has ever crippled a film's Oscar chances.

But secondly (and what Grove's spy probably did not mention), Brewer and co-producer Stephanie Allain just re-upped with Paramount on July 22 for a two-year first-look deal. So basically everything they develop until summer 2007 has to go through Paramount brass--whom Singleton just called out for stealing from them. Not a good way to start a partnership, huh, guys? And while The Reeler knows Singleton has always gone to bat for indie filmmakers, you have to admit the least he could have done here was cover his partners' asses.

For her part, Paramount EVP Janet Hill told Grove that the studio is "doing everything (it) can to investigate and discover the source." In other words: Do not call us, Mr. Singleton. We will call you.