StudioCanal cites “very normal” creative differences in the wake of the story about the collapse of Suddenly, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
It’s been quite a week in terms of Jake Gyllenhaal-related news. Yesterday (31st January), we shared the story of Suddenly, a survival drama that would have starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby as a couple stuck on a storm-swept island.
Speaking to French magazine Technikart, director Thomas Bidegain described a strange four-day ordeal in Iceland in the autumn of 2021. Bidegain claimed that Gyllenhaal – who was also a co-producer – demanded several changes to the script, and also exhibited some curious behaviour, including stripping down to his underwear and jumping in the sea in front of cast and crew, as well as reading the script aloud in a mock French accent.
Long story short: Bidegain and co-producer Alain Attal refused to change the script, and the production fell apart before a frame of footage was shot. Bidegain later made the film in French, with different actors – it was released last year under the title Suddenly Alone.
That story and some of its more outlandish details spread rapidly across social media – and traffic to this site was such that it, er, collapsed for several hours. In the hours since, the story also appears to have prompted a response from the company behind the production, StudioCanal.
“Creative differences are very normal, if unfortunate, regularities in film development,” StudioCanal wrote in a statement issued to both The AV Club and IGN. “In this case, there were concerns which simply could not be overcome despite great efforts on both sides. We greatly value all our relationships at STUDIOCANAL and are happy that Thomas Bidegain was able to fulfill his vision on the French language version of SUDDENLY. We remain deeply committed to our working partnerships with both Thomas Bidegain and Jake Gyllenhaal, with whom we have always enjoyed a very strong creative relationship.”
The studio doesn’t directly address any of the specific claims made by Bidegain in his interview with Technikart. Instead, both IGN and The AV Club cite an anonymous “source close to the production” who said that the production broke down due to creative differences, that it hadn’t actually been greenlit, and that neither Gyllenhaal nor Kirby knew anything about sets being built in Iceland.
The truth as to whether Gyllenhaal ever insisted that his character in Suddenly should slap a fish, or that the production’s set-builders should sleep in their cars to avoid spreading Covid, we currently don’t know.
More on this very strange story if and when we get it.
