All right, this news report came from me, but I couldn’t confirm it through any proper channels. Regardless, Deadline and several trades have confirmed my report: Joaquin Phoenix has dropped out of Todd Haynes’ gay detective movie co-starring Danny Ramirez.
Sources told me recently that Phoenix dropped out of the film just a handful of days before production was meant to begin, putting the entire production and film in peril.
I was told Phoenix was meant to board a plane, but didn’t and called Haynes and told him that he got cold feet and was backing out of the project.
In the days that followed, sources said Haynes wasn’t giving up easily and would try and salvage the film with a quick recast, but he hadn’t found anyone yet, and the delay would likely cost the film around another $10 million if the crews weren’t let go. The insider said it was possible the film could be shut down entirely, but that was maybe a week ago.
I assumed that MK2 Films, which is behind the film, might pull the plug, and Deadline confirms that news and says the movie is indeed dead.
Phoenix is notorious for last-minute jitters and being a self-doubter. Todd Phillips once said Phoenix tried to back out of the “Joker,” and Mike Mills told me in an interview that Phoenix also tried to drop out of “C’mon C’mon,” but both filmmakers were able to convince him to stick with it (there’s probably many more examples of this out there too).
But I heard this one was different. Phoenix bailed, leaving Haynes and the production scrambling. Given that Haynes and Phoenix had concocted the barebones idea of the story together, one assumes the filmmaker might be more than a little upset about the actor’s last-minute exit from the project.
Haynes previously told Variety about the film, “It’s a love story between two men set in the ’30s that has explicit sexual content, or at least it challenges you with the sexual relationship between these two men. One is a Native American character and one is a corrupt cop in LA. They have to flee L.A. ultimately and go to Mexico.”
Here’s my original tweet, which was reported yesterday, below.
Fuck it, since I can’t confirm this, this is what I’ve heard: Joaquin Phoenix has dropped out of Todd Haynes’ gay detective movie at the last minute, leaving the production in the lurch. Last I heard, TH was scrambling to recast rather than shut down, but it was costing a mint.
— Rodrigo Perez (@YrOnlyHope) August 8, 2024