Lewis Pullman has volunteered to replace Joaquin Phoenix in Todd Hayne’s cancelled gay romance.
Back in May 2023, the Dark Waters director announced that he was working with the Napolean star on an NC-17 gay romance drama.
“The next film is a feature that’s an original script that I developed with Joaquin Phoenix based on some thoughts and ideas he brought me,” the May December director revealed to Indie Wire.
“We basically wrote with him as a story writer. Me and Jon Raymond and Joaquin share the story credit. And we hope to be shooting it beginning early next year. It’s a gay love story set in 1930s L.A..”
A year later, Assassination Nation star Danny Ramirez joined the film as Phoenix’s love interest, with Deadline describing their characters as “intense lovers” who embark on a journey from California to Mexico.
While it seemed like everything was going according to plan, the project hit a major roadblock when Phoenix abruptly left the project in August.
According to Variety, a source alleged that the Gladiator star got “cold feet” due to the film’s graphic sex scenes.
Since that fateful day, the Haynes’ project has presumably been shelved.
However, in a recent interview with Variety, Ramirez’s Top Gun: Maverick costar Pullman recently expressed an interest in stepping into Phoenix’ abandoned role.
“I would love to get that call. It’s a brilliant idea. I’m here. I’m here. I’m ready,” he exclaimed.
While the jury is still out on whether Haynes will entertain the idea, Pullman and Ramirez have already proven to be a great team in front of and behind the camera.
In the same interview, the Outer Range star revealed that the Look Both Ways actor helped him prepare for his lead role in Max’s new adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot.
“He taught me this great thing, a way to break down the arc of a character with all these note cards,” Pullman explained to the news outlet.
“So I did it on this because I wanted to really track basicially how Ben’s journey into believing in something crazy like vampires. I was like, ‘Ok, I really want to do this right,’ where he’s like, ‘There’s no way vampires are actually [real],’ and then it’s like he sees this, he hears this, he witnesses that and compiling that arc.”
Pullman’s interview comes a few weeks after one of the producers for Hayne’s scrapped film – Christine Vachon – described Phoenix’s departure as “tragic.”
“The most tragic part about it is that Todd Haynes is 62. He’s not old, right? But there is a finite number of films that he’ll be able to do in his lifetime,” she said during a Fireside Talk at the San Sebastian Film Festival Creative Investor’s Conference in September.
“One of the most extraordinary film artists of his generation, and the idea that his time was wasted and that a movie is not a result of those years of working closely with Joaquin… that is the tragedy to me.”
Haynes memorably directed Carol (2015), starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, which is widely considered to be one of the greatest LGBTQIA+ films in history.
He later received acclaim for directing May December (2023), a dark comedy-drama with Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton. While not explicitly queer, it was praised for its homoerotic themes.
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