Joaquin Phoenix’s Last-Minute Exit Sparks “Huge Amount of Outrage” Among Hollywood Producers

When Joaquin Phoenix abruptly exited Todd Haynes’ homosexual romance film final week, simply 5 days earlier than manufacturing, the actor set off a tidal wave that has now rippled far previous the confines of its Guadalajara, Mexico set.

“There’s been an enormous quantity of concern,” says one studio exec of the response from Hollywood producers to Phoenix’s last-minute departure, which left solid and crew in a lurch, and now opens the actor as much as the potential for authorized motion, based on sources.

The departure was notably shocking, on condition that Phoenix first introduced the mission to Haynes and his longtime producers at Killer Movies, headed by Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler.

The untitled movie, additionally starring Captain America: Courageous New World’s Danny Ramirez, was stated to concentrate on an intense homosexual romance within the Nineteen Thirties. In response to a number of sources, Phoenix acquired chilly ft within the leadup to the manufacturing, although the explanations stay murky. A rep for Phoenix didn’t reply to a request for remark. Killer Movies declined to remark.

The actor is certainly identified to get chilly ft forward of filming on varied tasks. Two sources inform THR that he threatened to go away Ridley Scott’s Napoleon until his The Grasp filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson was introduced in to do rewrites. Placated, he stayed aboard the mission, and it arrived in theaters late final yr.

As Phoenix as soon as informed 60 Minutes’ Anderson Cooper, he’s normally “petrified” when he takes on a job and that earlier than he shoots, he’s “nervous” that he gained’t be capable of “discover the proper of place to specific” his concepts.

In current days, the drumbeat has gotten louder among the many producing neighborhood for authorized motion to be introduced towards Phoenix, with insiders pointing to examples all through Hollywood historical past of actors being held accountable for leaving movies with out a star.

In 1993, a court docket discovered that Kim Bassigner breached a verbal contract to star within the Important Line Photos movie Boxing Helena, with Bassigner ordered to pay the corporate no less than $8.92 million in damages. That ruling was overturned the subsequent yr, with Bassigner finally settling with Important Line in 1995, agreeing to pay $3.8 million. 

Others have cited Bruce Willis dropping out of a never-finished Disney movie Broadway Brawler mid-production, after which needed to do three Disney motion pictures — at beneath his market charge — as a make good. (That state of affairs labored out in everybody’s favor when two of these movies ended up being hits Armageddon and Sixth Sense.)

The controversy comes as Phoenix prepares to take The Joker: Folie à Deux to Venice and prone to different festivals as nicely. The Haynes film drama may solid a pall over the press tour, although Phoenix traditionally does little or no solo press, even for his splashy roles, and tends to attend till later in awards season when he does.

On Joker, he and Warners declined most main requests, and the movie’s Los Angeles premiere featured no pink carpet interviews from anybody, as Joker confronted its personal controversy over fears that the movie would encourage violence. The movie ended up being a $1 billion hit, and gained Phoenix the Oscar.

Certainly, the actor’s reticent angle and squirmy fame haven’t appeared to harm his Oscar possibilities and generally has even appeared to assist him with voters. Phoenix’s elaborate hoax that he was changing into a rapper — derided by many when he undertook it in 2010 — didn’t cease him from getting nominated for finest actor for The Grasp two years later.

Nonetheless, festivals do entail pink carpets and press conferences, and Phoenix’s presence at any of them may present a distraction, for each followers and media, so near his choice to go away the Haynes movie.

In response to sources, some producers have idly talked about blackballing Phoenix over the Haynes departure, however most acknowledge that’s not life like, notably on condition that Joker 2, out Oct. 4, is anticipated to be successful.

One agent unconnected to the Haynes motion pictures believes that finally, Phoenix is not going to face important profession blowback. And this individual predicts the actor will accept the low-seven figures the manufacturing spent on the film, citing his large paydays for his Joker movies because the actor having loads of money to cope with this example. “So long as they threaten, he’ll settle. It’s nothing to him,” says the agent.

—Steven Zeitchik contributed to this story.