Madonna, Ritchie Jeered at Movie Premiere

By Stephen M. Silverman

09/21/2005 at 09:00 AM EDT

Some 2,000 fans booed Madonna and her filmmaker husband, Guy Ritchie, at the London premiere of his new movie, Revolver, on Tuesday night because they didn't stop to sign autographs – and just kept walking.

By contrast, the movie's star, Jason Statham, spent nearly an hour signing autographs in Leicester Square, but Madonna and Ritchie had only brief contact with the crowd, stopping to pose for photographs before going into the theater, the Associated Press reports.

Saying, "This is fun for me. I get to dress up and show up," Madonna, 47, wore a black sequined Roberta Cavalli tuxedo dress with her arm in a matching sling. Last month, she suffered three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and a broken hand in a horse riding accident at her country home outside London.

Reviews of Revolver, in which Statham plays a man out to get revenge on a mob killer played by Ray Liotta, have been scathing – "Ritchie's new film lands on cinema-goers' collective head like a sack of wet sand," said the Guardian newspaper – but Ritchie, 37, defended the movie.

"The critics have been harsh all the way through my career but it doesn't affect me. I've accepted the rules of the game," said the director, who made the hit 1998 movie, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and 2000's Snatch.

Madonna also praised the new one, telling Sky News: "I love it. I think it's a very brave film, a bit macho."

Asked why he didn't give her a role in Revolver, Ritchie replied: "Do you think they would let me get away with that? I did that last time, it didn't work."

Their collaboration, Swept Away, bombed at the box office and was panned by critics, eventually "winning" the Razzie award for worst picture of the year.