Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix has suddenly dropped out of a project. He was set to work with Todd Haynes (Carol) on an untitled 1930s gay detective noir film. Phoenix pulled out just five days before the start of filming.
Not only were sets already built in Guadalajara, Mexico, sales locked, and crew assembled, but this was actually a Phoenix project from the outset. He was the open who took the project to the producers originally, not the other way around.
According to the reports, producers have been in overdrive trying to salvage the movie, but they have not succeeded. Due to Phoenix exiting this suddenly, the project is now dead.
A report in People backs this up, reproduicing a Facebook post from producer Christine Vachon confirming the news, where she refers to this as a “nightmare”.
Speculation abounds in Hollywood that Phoenix got cold feet due to the graphic nature of some scenes, particularly sexual. Haynes had told IndieWire last year that Phoenix was the one pushing to go further in this regard and the producers had settled on getting an NC-17 rating as a result.
So nobody really knows why the star dropped out so suddenly, or how this will impact the production company financially.