Out director Todd Haynes’ gay romance film reportedly “dead” after star Joaquin Phoenix drops out

Joaquin Phoenix has reportedly walked away from a Todd Haynes-directed gay romance film in which he was set to star. The actor’s departure has put the project “in peril,” according to Variety, with Deadline reporting that the film “is dead, and not paused.”

Deadline first reported last Friday that Phoenix “stormed off” the movie’s Guadalajara, Mexico set in July, just five days before filming was set to start. However, sources told IndieWire that the actor was still in Los Angeles when he dropped out.

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The actor believes he would not be allowed to play Harvey Milk if Gus Van Sant’s 2008 biopic was made today.

Variety also confirmed on Friday that the Academy Award winning Joker star had abruptly abandoned the project, with one source telling the outlet that Phoenix had gotten “cold feet.”

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Last year, out director Haynes described the untitled film as a love story “with a strong sexual component.”

“It’s a love story between two men set in the ’30s that has explicit sexual content,” Haynes told Variety in September 2023, adding that the film would challenge audiences “with the sexual relationship between these two men.”

“One is a Native American character and one is a corrupt cop in L.A.,” Haynes said. “They have to flee L.A. ultimately and go to Mexico.”

Haynes further explained that Phoenix brought the idea for the film to him. “He had fragments of ideas and then I started to formulate them into an actual narrative,” Haynes said.

The film was reportedly expected to receive an NC-17 rating, and according to Variety, some crew members think its graphic sex scenes may have led to Phoenix’s exit.

But in that same September 2023 interview with Variety, Haynes said that Phoenix had wanted to push the film’s content “into more dangerous territory, sexually.”

“Joaquin was pushing me further and going ‘No, let’s go further.’ This will be an NC-17 film,” the director told IndieWire during a Q&A at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023.

On Friday, IndieWire reported that the film’s financing had hinged upon Phoenix’s casting in what would have been his first gay role. Multiple outlets have reported that the actor is not expected to return to the project and his role will not be recast. A source told IndieWire that financiers and crew still needed to be paid, with Variety reporting that losses on the canceled film, which had already been sold to international distributors, could exceed seven figures.

Over the weekend, one of the film’s producers, Christine Vachon of Killer Films, posted IndieWire’s report on Phoenix’s departure on Facebook. “A version of this did happen,” she wrote in a since deleted post, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “It has been a nightmare.”

Vachon went on to blast those who have criticized the casting of Phoenix in a gay role.

“If you are tempted to finger wag or admonish us that ‘that’s what you get for casting a straight actor’ — DON’T,” she wrote. “This was HIS project that he brought to US — and Killer’s record on working with LGBTQ actors/crew/directors speaks for itself.”

Vachon added that anyone who does criticize Phoenix’s casting is “making a terrible situation even worse.”

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