Hoax about Clint Eastwood-directed Stompin’ Tom film fools Canadian media

TORONTO – An April Fools’ joke about Clint Eastwood directing Shania Twain in a biopic called “The Ballad of Stompin’ Tom” had several Canadian media outlets singing the blues this week.

The fake news story, which a representative for Twain called “complete nonsense,” prompted pick-ups in the Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, Montreal Gazette and Huffington Post Canada, all of whom have since acknowledged the error.

The reports can all be traced back to an item on the performing arts news website broadwayworld.com that claimed Aussie actor Bryan Brown had been cast as Connors, who died last month at age 77.

The story went on to claim that Eastwood had discovered the late Canadian troubadour through Canadian jazz singer Diana Krall, who encouraged him to make the film.

Twain, the article claimed, was to play Connors’ wife, Lena.

The story featured false quotes from Connors’ son, Tom Connors Jr., and Twain herself, while claiming that Brown had been “studying intensively” with a University of Toronto linguistics expert to nail Connors’ rural Ontario accent.

It went on to claim the film would include a cameo by retired general Romeo Dallaire, and was scheduled to open in theatres on June 27, 2014.

Eastwood, a four-time Oscar winner, hasn’t directed a film since 2011’s “J. Edgar” and it isn’t clear yet what his next project will be.