Joaquin Phoenix has reportedly exited Todd Haynes’s forthcoming untitled gay romance just days before filming was set to begin in Guadalajara, Mexico.
The 49-year-old Joker star was set to lead the new detective love story, which he also wrote the screenplay for alongside Haynes and Jon Raymond.
However, five days before production was scheduled to begin, Phoenix made the last-minute decision to drop out of the film after getting “cold feet,” a source told Variety.
Entire sets had apparently already been built by the time he abandoned the project in early July.
The Independent has contacted Phoenix and Haynes’s representatives for comment.
Produced by Killer Films and backed by sales agent MK2 Film, the movie had already been sold to international distributors. Variety further reports that the actor’s role cannot be recast, leaving the crew out of work and investors unpaid, meaning losses could surpass seven figures.
In July, Top Gun: Maverick actor Danny Ramirez signed on to play Phoenix’s love interest.
Director Haynes, best known for helming queer movies, including the Oscar-nominated Carol (2015) and last year’s May December, first teased the project in a 2023 interview with Variety. He had described it as “a love story between two men set in the ’30s that has explicit sexual content.”
Haynes added that the movie – which was set to be rated NC-17 (the highest MPA rating given to films containing material inappropriate for children under 17) – was going to feature a relationship that “challenges” audiences.
“[Phoenix] had fragments of ideas and then I started to formulate them into an actual narrative,” Haynes told the outlet, adding that “Joaquin was pushing it further into more dangerous territory, sexually.”
Phoenix is next set to return to his Oscar-winning title role as Joker/Arthur Fleck, while Gaga is set to make her debut as Lee/Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux, the musical sequel to Todd Phillips’ 2019 film, Joker.
The first film tracked the mental decline of Arthur, an aspiring comic and clown, after he is socially and romantically rejected. His violent Joker persona emerges as a result, and he goes on to become a cult hero. Phoenix won the Oscar for his performance, and the film made more than $1bn at the box office to become the most profitable R-rated movie of all time.
The sequel will arrive in cinemas on October 4 2024 – the fifth anniversary of the original film’s release.
