Bradley Cooper Exits 'Jane Got A Gun'; Tobey Maguire, Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Tom Hiddleston Being Sought To Replace

Bradley CooperThe saga continues… For a moment, it looked like everything was going to be okay on the troubled western “Jane Got A Gun.” After Michael Fassbender‘s departure, followed not longer after by director Lynne Ramsay‘s dramatic bailing on the movie literally days before cameras were going to roll (depending on who you ask she blindsided producers, or simply couldn’t come to terms with them) the movie recovered with “Warrior” director Gavin O’Connor taking over the director’s chair. The cast was shaken up a bit with the long attached Natalie Portman (who is also a producer on the movie) being joined by Joel Edgerton (who changed roles during the casting shuffle), Bradley Cooper (replacing Jude Law who also eventually exited) and Noah Emmerich. And now the movie has lost another major actor.

Either the catering is awful or something seriously wrong is going on, as Bradley Cooper has now jumped ship. He was set to play John Bishop, the villain seeking revenge against Bill Hammond (Emmerich), who turns against his own gang, the Bishop Boys. When her husband is left with eight bullets in his back, Bill’s wife Jane (Portman) decides to grab a gun and take matters into her own hands.

The official reason for Cooper’s exit is due to scheduling conflicts between David O. Russell‘s “American Hustle” (which was delayed slightly by the Boston bombings) and promo for “The Hangover Part III,” but something tells us that given how much strife the movie has been through already, producers would’ve moved mountains to accomodate Cooper, rather than have to replace him mid-production. 

Deadline says that Tobey Maguire, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hiddleston are a short (wish) list of replacements, but we’ll see how that works out. Another name previously rumored and said to be on the list is Jake Gyllenhaal, though THR says he’s already passed on it.

So another big step backward for “Jane Got A Gun.” While we hate the schadenfreude that can develop around projects like this, we really hope Vanity Fair has someone putting together a story.