<P> After The New York Times ran a story on Tim "Ripper" Owens in 1997, various Hollywood studios ran to option the filming rights . Warner Bros. won the bid, and hired John Stockwell to write the script . Stockwell soon started researching on the heavy metal music and tribute bands scene, and visited Owens' hometown of Akron, Ohio . Afterwards the project, under the working title Metal God, got the involvement of George Clooney's newly founded Maysville Pictures . Brad Pitt signed to star in 1998, but wound up dropping the project following creative differences with the studio . Eventually Mark Wahlberg, a former rapper with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch who co-starred with Clooney in Three Kings, was hired for the main role in May 1999 . Stephen Herek signed to direct in October, and the following month Jennifer Aniston became attached for the main female role, while Callie Khouri was hired to revise the script . </P> <P> Wahlberg spent five months preparing for his role as Chris Cole, working with a vocal coach, growing his hair, attending the metal scene and wandering around Los Angeles in - character . A concert scene was shot at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena before 10,000 Metallica and Megadeth fans . While filming one Steel Dragon performance, the crew pranked Wahlberg by playing Marky Mark's "Good Vibrations" instead of a rock track, and footage of this is featured during the film's end credits . By 2001, Warner renamed the project from Metal God to Rock Star in order to attract a broader rock fandom instead of just metal fans . </P> <P> The film opened at #4 at the U.S. box office raking in US $6,018,636 in its opening weekend, and grossing a domestic total of $17,008,282 and $2,325,863 internationally for a worldwide gross of $19,334,145; based on a $57 million budget, Rock Star was a box office bomb . </P> <P> On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 52% "Rotten" score, with the consensus "Like its title, Rock Star is rather generic, being not so much about the heavy metal scene than about rock cliches and formula". On another aggregator, Metacritic, the film is rated 54 based on 32 reviews . </P>

Who did the singing for the movie rockstar