In our 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2016 feature, we had a section titled “We’re Not Sure If This Is Still Happening in 2016, But It’s Highly Anticipated If It Is,” and leading that was Harmony Korine‘s “The Trap.” And it seems our cautious approach about the project on our list was justified. The “super propulsive, pretty highly violent revenge movie” has been brewing for a couple of years now, and had assembled the starriest cast the director has worked with yet, including Idris Elba, Benicio Del Toro, Robert Pattinson, Al Pacino, and James Franco. It was supposed to shoot last year and when that didn’t happen, there were rumblings it was lensing in the early part of 2016. But things have been really quiet around the movie, and Korine has revealed the reason for the delay, and more intriguingly, that he might not be making the picture next.
“I was supposed to shoot it last year. We were two weeks out. I got as close to shooting as you could be, and then I had issues with one of the actors. We had to pause the film, and then the movie got pushed back on the dates. I don’t really want to go into specifics, but it was more of a personality thing with one of the actors,” he told Dazed. “So, we put a halt to the film and recast the movie. We’re supposed to wait until this May to shoot it.”
While Korine doesn’t say which cast member it was he didn’t gel with, it should be noted that Jamie Foxx was replaced by Idris Elba just around the time the movie was initially supposed to shoot. It’s uncertain who has been retained since then, and who has been swapped out, but Korine adds that he might shoot another movie before he gets to “The Trap.”
“I just have this thing where I lose interest in things after a while. Even though that movie was ready to go, I have this other idea for a film. An idea kept cracking me up and cracking me up. I spent the last couple of months writing this thing, and I’m pretty much almost done with this script. I feel like I’m maybe going to do this new one first,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about the idea yet. But I will say, it’s very funny. It’s closer to a cross between a Cheech and Chong movie and that movie ‘Scarecrow.’ ”
As he reiterates to Amuse, “The Trap” is pretty much ready to go, but at the moment, his enthusiasm lies elsewhere. “I have a tendency to lose interest really fast. I was so close to doing [‘The Trap’] too — I had the whole thing storyboarded and ready and financed. I’ll still make it and I’ll still be making a movie this year. I got antsy waiting for ‘The Trap’ to happen so I wrote another script,” he said. “I know I’ll be directing a movie this year, whichever one happens quicker.”
So, we’ll be getting a new Harmony Korine movie soon. Which one it is remains to be seen.