12/11/07: Twenty Million Dollar Man

11:07 a.m.
David Beckham has had his ups and downs since moving to the states, but initial football/soccer woes and Victoria's failed TV bid aside, he just recently inked a three year, $20 million dollar deal to be the public face for Georgio Armani -- not a bad first step for a world-famous athlete with his eye on the Hollywood prize.

The first of the high-profile ads will make its debut in February, though images are already circulating like wildfire around the internet, and international tabloids are predictably atwitter at the full-frontal campaign.

If Armani wanted buzz, they got it. Just take a gander at the articles dishing about Beckham's carefully arranged and, er, enhanced photo:

1. David Beckham shows off Golden-bulge in Armani ad
2. David Beckham's Risqué Ad for Armani
3. Becks' Big Package
4. David Beckham In Controversial Armani Pants Ad
5. David Beckham Flashes Golden Balls For Emporio Armani
6. Bare It Like Beckham

And so on.

The number of press and Internet blog mentions is piling up by the minute, and this is only the very first shot across the bow in the Armani Beckham campaign. It's starting to look like this is twenty million dollars wisely spent on Armani's part, and every single other design house must be kicking themselves silly for not snatching up Beckham first.

This will probably go down as the new millennium's answer to Marky Mark in his Calvins, and if Beckham is really serious about wanting a Hollywood movie career, there are worse ideas than following in Mark Wahlberg's trouser-shedding footsteps: