It's probably not as painful as having his arm chopped off in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, but it's still going to hurt. Because Virgin Records wants an arm and a leg from actor Jared Leto and his band 30 Seconds to Mars, for failure to deliver a new record on time. That's a seriously hefty parking ticket.

According to the Associated Press, Virgin sued Leto and crew on Friday for what can only be described as a cheeky number. $30 million from 30 Seconds? Classy.

The details of the band's tardiness have yet to be explained, but its past performance so far has been above-average for a major-label rock band with a movie star at the helm. Sure, its 2002 self-titled debut only sold 100,000 copies, but it's 2005 effort A Beautiful Lie went platinum, and the band was nominated for the usual MTV awards given to paparazzi rock.

After playing a steady stream of dates in 2007, 30 Seconds to Mars has reportedly been at work on the new effort, but evidently it's not moving fast enough for Virgin. Maybe it should book some time on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to speed things up? Probably won't make a difference: 30 Seconds to Mars is likely another casualty in the massive cost-saving merger with Capitol Records executed by EMI, whose major restructuring in 2007 was aimed at saving hundreds of millions a year.

Looks like we know where they're going to get $30 million of it.

Photo: Wikipedia/Vincent Guastini