On Friday, news broke that Joaquin Phoenix left the set of Todd Haynes’ upcoming, untitled film. The film, which was five days away from starting production, was the brainchild of Phoenix, who brought his original idea to Todd Haynes and his producers. Haynes then co-wrote the script with writer Jonathan Raymond (who previously collaborated with Haynes on Mildred Pierce), while Phoenix worked as a story writer—he, Haynes, and Raymond were to share a “story by” credit on the film.
The film, which started selling rights earlier this year, was to co-star Top Gun: Maverick’s Danny Ramirez, and was described as a 1930s gay romance between a corrupt LA cop and a younger Native American man, and it was anticipated to have an NC-17 rating, as Phoenix wanted to “push through barriers” and “get into the uncomfortable places about this relationship”. This is very important: this film was Joaquin Phoenix’s idea, with his direct creative input, and he was the one who wanted it to be an explicit gay romance.
The film was going to shoot in Mexico, but after Phoenix left the set, Danny Ramirez headed to Comic-Con to promote Captain America: Brave New World without knowing if the film could be salvaged or not. As it cannot be salvaged, Danny Ramirez is now out of work. So are the unnamed and untold crew members who have not been paid. Variety reports losses could be in the millions.
I cannot stress this enough: Joaquin Phoenix quit HIS OWN PROJECT and has left dozens if not hundreds of people in the lurch. People who thought they had the next several weeks/months of work lined up are now jobless, never mind the insurance nightmare now facing Haynes and the film’s producers, and whatever legal hell the entities that already bought distribution rights will rain down. This is going to be VERY EXPENSIVE for everyone BUT Joaquin Phoenix…unless someone sues the pants off him.
First, let’s acknowledge that this IS NOT about Joaquin Phoenix, a straight man, playing a queer character. Nor is it about Danny Ramirez, who is not Native American, playing a Native American character (as was initially described earlier this year, perhaps that detail changed, we’ll probably never know). Had this film completed and been released, we could have had those conversations about access, opportunity, and casting. As we stand now, the worst people in the world are celebrating Phoenix “fighting” the “Hollywood gay agenda”; they’re throwing around the word “grooming” in relation to a fully grown man who had the idea for the movie in the first place. I think I dislike Joaquin Phoenix now simply for giving the worst people in the world grounds to say these things, no matter how misguided and incorrect they are. You KNOW they don’t care it was his idea, they just see “straight actor quits gay movie” and cheer. F-ck him a little bit for that.
But f-ck him the most for leaving so many people in the lurch. I HOPE he gets sued, and I hope he goes bankrupt (as Kim Basinger did when she backed out of Boxing Helena at the last minute in the early 1990s). Phoenix has rich in-laws, he will be fine. He will always be fine. The world is literally designed for him to be fine. Everyone else, though, will take a hit, from Todd Haynes down. Haynes has a hard enough time financing his films, this won’t help. Never mind the potential hardships facing jobbing crew members, the people who do not get paid millions to make movies. The people who are just there to do their job and put food on their tables. THOSE people have it the worst.
If Joaquin Phoenix has any sense of responsibility and decency, he will pay those people out of pocket. He will say, “I am covering expenses for those left unemployed because I am flighty and reckless with other people’s time and money.” (He almost backed out of Napoleon, too.) It is the actual least he can do…and I will be utterly shocked if he does it.
And sure, actors leave projects all the time, sometimes they even do it during production. Lupita Nyong’o left The Lady in the Lake about a month into production a couple of years ago, and I mentioned John Boyega leaving Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge mid-production, too. It’s never a good thing when it happens, it always costs somebody somewhere money. But in most cases, the actor can be replaced, and production continues, and nobody is out of work except the actor who quit. In this case, though, Todd Haynes’ film cannot continue without Phoenix (presumably because of some combination of the story being his idea and financing depending on his involvement as an actor), which surely, he knew. He must have known what quitting would mean for everyone else.
Joaquin Phoenix will be in Venice for the world premiere of Joker: Folie à Deux in a few weeks. He will be celebrated for returning to his Oscar-winning role of a clown. He will be applauded just for showing up, he might even be applauded for performing well in the clown movie, for which he received a $20 million salary. And through it all, will anyone ask him about how he quit a movie at the last minute, leaving crew members unpaid and unemployed? Will anyone ask him to explain himself, and what he is doing to ensure the most economically vulnerable members of the film industry are supported as their jobs just evaporated on HIS whim? Joaquin Phoenix SHOULD be held accountable. But he probably won’t be. At least not until lawsuits start rolling in.
