Sometimes movies don’t make it to the finish line even ones that sound like a complete slamdunk. Our latest example is “Gloden” (formerly known as “Atlantis“) a period musical that had a great on-paper collaboration between director Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind”) and musician/artist/producer Pharrell Williams that was going to be released theatrically by Universal Pictures on May 5.
However, according to a report from Variety, there was a decision to scrap the pic entirely without any chance of release or being resold to other interested parties. How it’s framed by the reporting, is that everyone seems to be on board that “Golden” wasn’t up to snuff.
“Golden” was in the early stages of the post-production process (will likely never be fully completed) and Universal is going to eat the $20 million costs. Also, Variety goes out of its way to mention that we shouldn’t confuse this situation with recent tax write-off tactics used by Warner Bros. Discovery to kill completed movies like “Batgirl” and “Coyote vs. Acme.”
This was a bit more amicable between all parties, at least, how they tell it.
Williams and Gondry said the following in a joint statement:
“When all of us got into the editing room we collectively decided there wasn’t a path forward to tell the version of this story that we originally envisioned. We appreciate all the hard work of the talented cast and crew. While we’re disappointed we can’t deliver this film, we have incredible partners at Universal and will collaborate in a different capacity again soon.”
A period musical set during the summer of 1977 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and was poised to lean hard into “a celebration of black joy” as explained by Williams to Empire Magazine in November. He would go on to compare the pic to landmark romance musicals like “Dirty Dancing” and “Grease.” Hard not to think it would be fascinating to see what they came up with regardless after assembling a cast that included the likes of Kelvin Harrison Jr., Halle Bailey, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Brian Tyree Henry, Janelle Monáe, Missy Elliott, Quinta Brunson, Anderson .Paak, and Jaboukie Young-White.
With Godry’s music video background (made videos for Björk, Radiohead, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, The White Stripes, and Beck), it seemed like a great idea for Williams, also known for his endless creativity, to find something the pair could do together like “Golden.” Universal and Gondry had previously partnered on “Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind,” which landed the French filmmaker a Best Original Screenplay Oscar win shared by co-writer Charlie Kaufman.
Williams had been making a handful of moves at Universal after providing the theme song and music as the composer for their “Despicable Me” franchise. Alongside a biopic at Focus/Universal about his life, “Piece By Piece,” Williams was able to animate his story with Legos and the Danish toy company’s backing, which was quite the flex at the time after massive hits like “The Lego Movie” and “The Lego Batman Movie” made huge waves for Warner Bros. in the past.
Normally, other options are discussed when a film is yanked from theaters such as a streamer or another distributor swooping in to save the movie, as plenty of other studios would kill to have a high-profile project just waiting to be bought. We’ll see if anyone involved reconsiders this choice down the line, but it sounds like everyone is walking away from this one and on good terms.
