Joaquin Phoenix appears to be winning himself few friends in Hollywood, as fallout builds from his recent quitting of Todd Haynes’ new film.
The fallout continues to unfurl following Joaquin Phoenix’s reported decision to exit Todd Haynes’ latest production just five days before cameras were set to roll. While we often see creative personnel exit projects in pre-production, doing so on the eve of filming is far rarer: it can be a death knell for the project, especially if the departing person is the marquee name that the production (and its financing) has been built on.
That seems to be the case with this particular film, which despite the best efforts of producers in the wake of Phoenix’s departure was ultimately scrapped. Sets were built, costumes were designed, kit was hired and more. Plenty of was spent, we’d imagine, and with no movie to show for it, somebody is going to be losing money (“low seven figures” is the vague sum previously suggested by The Hollywood Reporter).
Should the reports prove to be accurate, legal action against Phoenix is almost a certainty, but there’s also the damage to his reputation to consider.
The Hollywood Reporter has published a piece today in which an unnamed producer states, “There’s been a huge amount of outrage” about the actor’s alleged refusal to work through whatever creative differences were causing his unhappiness. Had he done so, many people dependent on that production wouldn’t suddenly find themselves out of work or out of pocket.
The outlet also points to a previous story that we also covered last August, regarding Phoenix’s reported behaviour on the eve of Napoleon’s production. That tale was relayed by none other than the film’s director Ridley Scott, a rather fiery creative type himself and somebody not afraid of bruising an ego or two if he deems it necessary.
Scott claimed that Phoenix was in a state of creative paralysis just two weeks out from the production of Napoleon, released in 2023. In the filmmaker’s own words, “He’ll come in, and you’re f—– two weeks’ out, and he’ll say, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ I’ll say, ‘What?!’ ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Oh God. I said, ‘Come in, sit down.’ We sat for ten days, all day, talking scene by scene. In a sense, we rehearsed. Absolutely detail by detail.”
Interestingly, The Hollywood Reporter is claiming that Phoenix’s uncertainty about the project led him to do more than just talk through it. The outlet is claiming sources have said that Phoenix threatened to depart Napoleon unless Paul Thomas Anderson was brought in to do rewrites.
Legal action is almost a certainty at this point, there’s a precedent for it. Kim Basinger faced serious legal repercussions for walking off the production of 1993’s Boxing Helena, a courtroom encounter that Simon covered in his podcast recently. The Phoenix affair one is set to rumble on for some time and plenty more people will have their say before it’s done, we’d imagine,
