Assorted Discussions of Films That Never Happened

[DarkImbecile]

That's pretty clearly aox's point... they're shuttering an entire studio and using a crisis to dubiously claim poverty

[beamish14]

That's pretty clearly aox's point... they're shuttering an entire studio and using a crisis to dubiously claim poverty

This is typical of Disney. They also cut 140+ jobs when they shut down Robert Zemeckis' Imagemovers in L.A. (his mo-cap animation mini studio) and Henry Selick's Cinderbiter (which was animating the aforementioned The Shadow King in San Francisco). Disney's price tag for Nimona will be so high that no other studio will buy it, and small fragments of it will be likely be relegated to archives and artist portfolios. Maybe Disney will deposit work-in-progress materials to the AMPAS and the public can eventually see what it would've been like a la The Thief and the Cobbler, but this is an enormous waste of talent.

[ianthemovie]

According to an interview with Eric Kohn while at Cannes, Todd Haynes' upcoming projects include a re-teaming with Kate Winslet for HBO, and a sexually explicit gay romance set in 1930s L.A., starring Joaquin Phoenix and co-written with Jon Raymond.

(Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere already.)

[Matt]

Sure, Todd (or actually Joaquin, who he’s quoting). And you have a distributor already signed on who supports you in this, right?

[yoloswegmaster]

According to an interview with Eric Kohn while at Cannes, Todd Haynes' upcoming projects include a re-teaming with Kate Winslet for HBO, and a sexually explicit gay romance set in 1930s L.A., starring Joaquin Phoenix and co-written with Jon Raymond.

(Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere already.)

Phoenix dropped just 5 days before production started

[domino harvey]

Bizarre, since he was apparently the driving force behind it even being made and helped to conceive the story. Wonder what is happening here

[yoloswegmaster]

Deadline is saying that he stormed off the set a couple weeks ago and the project is now dead

[beamish14]

Deadline is saying that he stormed off the set a couple weeks ago and the project is now dead

I guess walking before filming actually starts is preferable to what Bruce Willis did on Broadway Brawler, Russell Crowe on Flora Plum, and Sam Kinison with Atuk

[The Narrator Returns]

[beamish14]

I can only imagine how devastated and livid Vachon, Haynes, and other stakeholders are.

[beamish14]

The Wall and the Wing, a very early Laika feature that never made it past proof of concept tests and storyboarding

[Lemmy Caution]

Shingō village in Japan contains another location of what is purported to be the last resting place of Jesus, the so-called "Tomb of Jesus" (Kirisuto no haka), and the residence of Jesus's last descendants, the family of Sajiro Sawaguchi.

According to the Sawaguchi family's claims, Jesus Christ did not die on the cross at Golgotha. Instead his brother, Isukiri, took his place on the cross, while Jesus fled across Siberia to Mutsu Province, in northern Japan. Once in Japan, he changed his name to Torai Tora Daitenku, became a rice farmer, married a twenty-year old Japanese woman named Miyuko, and raised three daughters near what is now Shingō.

While in Japan, it is asserted that he traveled, learned, and eventually died at the age of 106. His body was exposed on a hilltop for four years. According to the customs of the time, Jesus's bones were collected, bundled, and buried in the mound purported to be the grave of Jesus Christ.

This seems about as likely as the lost tribe of Israel founding America. But I like when far-flung places get in on major cultural narratives they otherwise seem extremely disconnected from.

The first thing that came to mind was Andrei Rubylev but set in the Roman Era. Or something like Pasolini's Gospel of St Anthony for the Japan section. (okay, really the first thing which came to mind is the Monty Python scene, where a stranger offers to carry the cross for a condemned man who then giddily flees).

Anyway, there are many ways to approach such material. Including emphasizing the Japanese-ness of Christ, the spirituality of rice growing, acceptance of aging, divinity and doubt, salvation or no. I envision the film as quietly mediative, concerned with nature, and the interaction of Japanese culture on Christ, and vice versa.

[Never Cursed]

Another music biopic runs into disastrous trouble: Michel Gondry's film about Pharrell Williams, already shot and in post-production, scrapped permanently after Gondry, Williams, and producers either could not agree on creative decisions or mutually decided that the film didn't work

[criterionsnob]

Also scrapped, a 9-hour Prince documentary by Ezra Edelman (O.J.: Made in America) that he's worked on for four years.

[Never Cursed]

That one sounded like it was finished (indeed it was scrapped because it said highly negative things about Prince and the estate wouldn't clear it) and I hope it somehow leaks.

[beamish14]

Another music biopic runs into disastrous trouble: Michel Gondry's film about Pharrell Williams, already shot and in post-production, scrapped permanently after Gondry, Williams, and producers either could not agree on creative decisions or mutually decided that the film didn't work

I’m amazed that Gondry still wants to work with Hollywood studios after The Green Hornet

[domino harvey]

Another music biopic runs into disastrous trouble: Michel Gondry's film about Pharrell Williams, already shot and in post-production, scrapped permanently after Gondry, Williams, and producers either could not agree on creative decisions or mutually decided that the film didn't work

Contrary to the article, several users on AW claim the film already test screened, so there was some kind of final product out there

[Matt]

I'm of the opinion that O.J.: Made in America is one of the best documentaries of the century so far, so I hope this gets leaked, too.

[dwk]

Pablo Torre and Wesley Morris have seen the Prince documentary

[domino harvey]

A24 released a zine dedicated to examples since the 70s

[beamish14]

Bruce Springsteen’s forthcoming set of unreleased albums, Tracks II, has a work entitled Faithless that is rumored to have been intended for Ridley Scott’s Blood Meridian

[PfR73]

I've been listening to the audio commentaries for Game of Thrones and on the one for "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" with Michelle MacLaren and GRRM, MacLaren states that she had previously worked with Natalie Dormer on a film that was in production but never finished due to "an illness". I can't find any information about what this film was/would have been.

[domino harvey]

Haynes’ canceled film is possibly being saved due to the most ubiquitous actor of the year

[beamish14]

Haynes’ canceled film is possibly being saved due to the most ubiquitous actor of the year

He’s seriously in more projects than Elliott Gould circa 1970-71

[MichaelB]

...although in tandem with that, it seems as though Jerzy Skolimowski's Angel of Death is in trouble, for the age-old reason that its US backers are demanding more creative control than Skolimowski is prepared to concede.