George Clooney exits WHITE JAZZ

Killing Pablo was going to face competition from Olivier Stone (producing) and Antoine Fuqua (directing) whose own biopic of the Columbian billionaire and drug cartel boss was set to get in production first. That is not something that can easily be brushed off. Rarely in cinema history have two movies dealing with the 'exact' same story and the 'exact' same guy both done big business and it's usually the latter movie released that suffers the most. Then came the news that Chris Pine had opted out of starring in the secondary lead role of his next movie White Jazz, as J.J. Abrams and the Kirk role came calling. This being the second time Abrams has pipped Carnahan to something (the other time being Mission Impossible III) but he took it pretty well and didn't sound bitter at all. Now comes the really big blow from where I'm sitting. George Clooney, the huge A-List star whose casting has had me excited for nearly a whole year, has walked out of White Jazz. Now Carnahan is starting to express his disappointment but he is still looking for the positives...

Rough weekend. I had a bad feeling after they pushed 'Leatherheads' to April because of the extensive post on that film that something was going to have to give. Also, George is neck deep in the Coen bros. film at the moment and trying to do 'Michael Clayton' press which will likely carry over into Awards season...SO...they wanted to see about pushing White Jazz back, which I really don't want to do. I've been waiting awhile to make this one and I wasn't content to sit on my hands. Right now, (actually it began on friday) we're in the process of trying to plug a guy into this movie that, if it works, would be pretty f*cking amazing. No, INCREDIBLY f*cking amazing, so we'll see what happens. No tears kids. This is the business. It happens all the time and you've got to have the balls and the ability to push past in spite of these setbacks. We march on.

So, just who could be 'pretty f*cking amazing'? You gotta look for the guys who haven't got work coming up. One person is of course Chrisitan Bale.

Now, I've never read White Jazz (I so nearly picked it up yesterday at my local store) so I don't know what the lead role is like, but man, Bale is a superb actor and the idea of him playing an old school cop is too good not to consider. And remember, Carnahan cast him in Killing Pablo so there's already a link there. If it's him then you heard it here first! My own bit of detective work may have a scoop here. They don't call me Holmes for nothing! Seriously though, a real shame about Clooney. I was looking forward to seeing him in this.