10 Movies That Just Got Cancelled
4. Todd Haynes' Untitled Drama Project
In September 2023, it was announced that feted director Todd Haynes (Carol) would helm a new film with Joaquin Phoenix and Danny Ramirez - a sexually explicit drama focused on the love story between two men in the 1930s.
But this past August, it was announced that Phoenix had abruptly quit the film just five days before shooting was set to begin.
Phoenix, who actually developed the screenplay and brought the project to Haynes in the first place, was reported to have gotten "cold feet," leaving the production with fully built sets, international pre-sales already completed, and a crew out of work.
Rather than recast Phoenix, however, the decision was made to simply cancel the film despite it being so close to production, with suggestions that the movie's losses could end up in the number of seven figures.
Though some claimed that Phoenix quit the project due to its graphic sex scenes, this seems like a dubious rationale given that Phoenix himself developed the film from the ground up. Either way, it's not happening.