Annemarie Quill: Grizzly rumours too much to bear

IN THE RUNNING: Leonardo DiCaprio's latest film, is tipped to finally win him an Oscar.

Leonardo DiCaprio was not raped by a bear.

Strange the headlines that suddenly pop up in one's newsfeed.

Before this informative statement by the UK's Daily Mail I had not been aware that Leo - of whom I am a great fan ever since Titanic (why did Kate leave him to sink? There was room on that piece of wood for two) - had been rumoured to have been involved in such an unthinkable orsine assault.

The UK's Guardian newspaper explains that Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox had been forced to deny internet reports this week that The Wolf of Wall Street actor played a character who was raped by a bear in his latest movie The Revenant.

Earlier in the week "The Drudge Report" had told of "a shocking scene of a wild bear raping Leo DiCaprio" in the movie. "He is raped - twice," continues the article.

Fox denied this in a statement to Entertainment Weekly.

"As anyone who has seen the movie can attest, the bear in the film is a female who attacks Hugh Glass because she feels he might be threatening her cubs," a Fox spokesman said.

"There is clearly no rape scene with a bear."

The Daily Mail says, "... while it is an intense scene, they both say there does not appear to be any incident of rape".

Glad we got that cleared up.

The bear scene certainly proved marketing gold for the film because if you hadn't heard of this movie before, you certainly would remember it now.

The movie, due for release soon, is tipped to win five-time nominee DiCaprio an Oscar.

Even the bear in question - called Judy apparently - is in the running for an award. Entertainment Weekly reports that Judy is up for Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation in a Live Action Production.

Judy is competing against Indominus Rex from Jurassic World, The Hulk from Avengers: Age of Ultron, and our very own Azog and Smaug from The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in the category.

So after spending so much time reading about The Revenant, and being a firm follower of Mr DiCaprio, I am looking forward to seeing it.

Perhaps I should take smelling salts in case I faint.

Movie blogger Jeffrey Wells has also thrust The Revenant into the limelight with his tweet earlier this month.

"The Revenant is an unflinchingly brutal, you-are-there, raw-element immersion like something you've never seen. Forget women seeing this," he tweeted.

His comments caused an outburst on social media, summed up nicely by one poster as "misogynist crap".

Wells hit back saying he was basing his comments on the fact that his friend who he had viewed the movie with, "a career woman" (urgh, with that phrase alone he is spouting more crap than Judy the bear) "cowered and shivered like a chipmunk during the rough parts", and that "Twitter fascists will kill anyone who suggests there's such a thing as movies with a gender-centric appeal... "

Maybe Wells should also be in the running for the Brown Bear Best Marketing of a Movie award, because after his comments I am sure a whole lot more women will now go see Leo and Judy in action.

If the acting is so good that it has caused this much furore already then hopefully it will win DiCaprio his much-deserved Oscar.

I'm going to see it with the girls. Can't wait.