His Movie Exit Sparks Outrage

When Joaquin Phoenix abruptly exited Todd Haynes’ homosexual romance film final week, simply 5 days earlier than manufacturing, the actor set off a tidal wave that has now rippled far previous the confines of its Guadalajara, Mexico set.

“There’s been an enormous quantity of shock,” says one studio exec of the response from Hollywood producers to Phoenix’s last-minute departure, which left solid and crew in a lurch, and now opens the actor as much as the opportunity of authorized motion, based on sources.

The departure was significantly shocking, on condition that Phoenix first introduced the undertaking to Haynes and his longtime producers at Killer Movies, headed by Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler.

The untitled movie, additionally starring Captain America: Courageous New World’s Danny Ramirez, was stated to concentrate on an intense homosexual romance within the Thirties. In line with a number of sources, Phoenix obtained chilly ft within the leadup to the manufacturing, although the explanations stay murky. A rep for Phoenix didn’t reply to a request for remark. Killer Movies declined to remark.

The actor is certainly recognized to get chilly ft forward of filming on varied initiatives. Two sources inform THR that he threatened to depart Ridley Scott’s Napoleon except his The Grasp filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson was introduced in to do rewrites. Placated, he stayed aboard the undertaking, and it arrived in theaters late final 12 months.

As Phoenix as soon as advised 60 Minutes’ Anderson Cooper, he’s normally “petrified” when he takes on a task and that earlier than he shoots, he’s “nervous” that he received’t be capable to “discover the correct of place to precise” his concepts.

In current days, the drumbeat has gotten louder among the many producing neighborhood for authorized motion to be introduced towards Phoenix, with insiders pointing to examples all through Hollywood historical past of actors being held accountable for leaving movies and not using a star.

In 1993, a court docket discovered that Kim Basinger breached a verbal contract to star within the Most important Line Photos movie Boxing Helena, with Basinger ordered to pay the corporate not less than $8.92 million in damages. That ruling was overturned the subsequent 12 months, with Basinger finally settling with Most important Line in 1995, agreeing to pay $3.8 million. 

Others have cited Bruce Willis dropping out of a never-finished Disney movie Broadway Brawler mid-production, after which needed to do three Disney films — at beneath his market charge — as a make good. (That state of affairs labored out in everybody’s favor when two of these movies ended up being hits Armageddon and Sixth Sense.)

The controversy comes as Phoenix prepares to take The Joker: Folie à Deux to Venice and prone to different festivals as nicely. The Haynes film drama might solid a pall over the press tour, although Phoenix traditionally does little or no solo press, even for his splashy roles, and tends to attend till later in awards season when he does.

On Joker, he and Warners declined most main requests, and the movie’s Los Angeles premiere featured no crimson carpet interviews from anybody, as Joker confronted its personal controversy over fears that the movie would encourage violence. The movie ended up being a $1 billion hit, and received Phoenix the Oscar.

Certainly, the actor’s reticent angle and squirmy fame haven’t appeared to harm his Oscar possibilities and generally has even appeared to assist him with voters. Phoenix’s elaborate hoax that he was changing into a rapper — derided by many when he undertook it in 2010 — didn’t cease him from getting nominated for greatest actor for The Grasp two years later.

Nonetheless, festivals do entail crimson carpets and press conferences, and Phoenix’s presence at any of them might present a distraction, for each followers and media, so near his resolution to depart the Haynes movie.

In line with sources, some producers have idly talked about blackballing Phoenix over the Haynes departure, however most acknowledge that’s not real looking, significantly on condition that Joker 2, out Oct. 4, is predicted to be a success.

One agent unconnected to the Haynes films believes that in the end, Phoenix is not going to face vital profession blowback. And this particular person predicts the actor will accept the low-seven figures the manufacturing spent on the film, citing his massive paydays for his Joker movies because the actor having loads of money to cope with this example. “So long as they threaten, he’ll settle. It’s nothing to him,” says the agent.

—Steven Zeitchik contributed to this story.