Over the weekend, it was Angels & Demons and Pinkville — and yesterday, the writers’ strike claimed two more film casualties.
Variety reports that Warner Bros. has halted production on Shantaram, the Mira Nair-directed, Johnny Depp-led adaptation of the Gregory David Roberts novel, and The Weinstein Company has put Rob Marshall‘s Nine on hold. Both decisions were made due to script concerns. From the article:
Depp, who is producing “Shantaram” with Graham King, planned to spend the winter in India, playing an Australian heroin addict who escapes a maximum-security prison, reinvents himself as a doctor in the slums of India and eventually uses gun-running and counterfeiting skills to fight against the invading Russian troops in Afghanistan. Abhishek Bachchan was also set to star.
Nine, meanwhile, was set to star Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, and Marion Cotillard in a musical inspired by Federico Fellini‘s 8 1/2. Michael Tolkin‘s script had been undergoing a “polish” at the hands of Anthony Minghella, but he ran out of time before the strike, so now the studio plans to hold off until work resumes.
Source: Variety
