Eternal Sunshine director Michel Gondry was in post-production on Golden, a biopic about Pharrell Williams. Universal has reportedly scrapped it.
Universal Pictures has reportedly – and rather drastically – decided to scrap a high-profile musical about Pharrell Williams. The news is an eyebrow-raiser for a number of reasons – first because it’s by a respected director, Michel Gondry, and second because it was fairly near completion.
Called Golden, the musical had an impressive cast which included Kelvin Harrison Jr, Halle Bailey, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Brian Tyree Henry to name a few. It would have contrasted tidily with last year’s documentary Piece By Piece, since that film (largely animated using Lego figures and bricks) covered Pharrell Williams’ musical career, while Golden, a narrative feature, would have explored his childhood.
Golden was originally scheduled for a cinema release in May, but Universal has instead decided to permanently shelve the film. According to Variety, the decision was arrived at unanimously, with both Gondry and his film’s subject sharing a joint statement with the outlet.
“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,” the pair wrote.
Read more: Piece By Piece review | Pharrell Williams gets the Lego treatment in unusual biopic
Golden was reportedly in post-production when this decision was made, with $20m already having been spent on it at that point. It’s certainly a blow for Gondry, given that it was his biggest studio project in years. After the acclaim of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind in 2004 and less-than-acclaimed adventure The Green Hornet (2011), the French filmmaker moved towards smaller-scale projects like Mood Indigo (2013) and The Book of Solutions (2023).
A director who pushes technical boundaries (he pioneered bullet-time before The Matrix), he’d surely have brought some visual flair to Golden's song-and-dance sequences.
Seriously. Take a look at this:
It’s currently unclear why such a harsh step was taken, particularly given that much of the film was – per reports – already shot. Whatever the reason, Golden therefore joins a list of recent, cancelled movies, including Warner Bros’ Batgirl, Acme Vs Coyote, Scoob! 2 and Netflix’s The Mothership.
“We appreciate all the hard work of the talented cast and crew,” Williams and Gondry’s statement concludes. “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.”
Blimey.
Image credit: Pharrell Williams by Frank Schwichtenberg, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
