Russell Crowe Sidelined by Shoulder Injury

September 7 -- Russell Crowe, who took a beating on the set of his action epic, Gladiator, suffered a shoulder injury Tuesday while training for his new non-action film, Flora Plum.

While more details have not been released about how Crowe was hurt, doctors are recommending surgery for the strapping 36-year-old actor.

His untimely injury has effectively sidelined the film, which marks Jodie Foster's return to the director's chair. In Flora Plum, Crowe was to have starred as a circus freak who falls in love with a young, penniless waif (Claire Danes) and helps boost her to fame.

Crowe incurred the injury while training in Austin, Texas, where he just put on a series of sold-out rock and roll concerts with his band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts. The star was expected to start production on Plum in Orlando, Fla., in two weeks, but he has been advised by doctors to undergo surgery at the end of the month, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Now the film is on hold while producers decide whether to wait for Crowe to recover or to recast his part.

His injury is the latest in a series of film-set mishaps for the newly anointed action hero. While filming Gladiator, Crowe suffered battering almost as severe as his character, Maximus, did, and the production also lost co-star Oliver Reed (who played slave-owner Prospero) to a natural but untimely death. On the set of Proof of Life, a stand-in for co-star David Morse was killed when a truck plunged into a ravine.

While he's recuperating, Crowe can ponder his next film, which is likely to be A Beautiful Mind, for Ron Howard, in which he'd star as a mathematical genius who miraculously recovers from schizophrenia and is awarded a Nobel Prize.