Even though photos of Bruce Willis appeared online yesterday from the set of Woody Allen‘s latest production, a new report now indicates he’s since left the film. What could have gone so disastrously wrong in less than 24 hours?
Deadline dropped the scoop citing the old scheduling conflicts as the reason for his sudden departure. In an unusual twist of events, Willis’ desire to collaborate with Allen was “hobbled” by his commitment to a Broadway adaptation of the Stephen King novel Misery. As the action muscle had only shot a few scenes, Allen now has sufficient time to recast the part and resume shooting.
By the size of it, this brief bump in the road won’t present too much of a hurdle for the prolific director. If anything, he’ll likely secure a replacement very soon as his starry ensembles have proven over recent years — everyone’s dying to work with him. Well, everyone except Willis it seems. Despite the official “scheduling conflicts,” there’s a whiff of something rotten in the air. It seems implausible that his agent would permit two competing projects to overlap, and it’s most likely that the pair didn’t get along and thus Willis bolted. Or was fired by his director, who has a history of switching up roles at the last minute.
Either way, there’s still plenty of major names populating Woody Allen’s next as-yet untitled flick, with Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Jeannie Berlin, Corey Stoll, Ken Stott, Anna Camp, Stephen Kunken, Sari Lennick and Paul Schneider all very much still attached. The movie opens sometime in 2016.