Todd Haynes film in limbo after Joaquin Phoenix departs days before Mexico shoot

Uncertainty surrounds the future of Todd Haynes’s untitled gay romance after it emerged that Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix reportedly exited days before the start of production in Mexico with crew left unpaid.

Haynes and regular producers France-based Killer Films had lined up a Guadalajara shoot on the 1930s-set story about two men who fall in love and leave California for Mexico. 

According to a report on Indiewire, Phoenix was in California when he pulled out days before cameras were ready to roll. Danny Ramirez from Top Gun: Maverick has been cast as the love interest.

Reports have said members of the production need to be paid and sets have been built.

Two days after the news broke, producer Christine Vachon of Killer Films addressed the reports.

After declining to comment on Friday, People reported that Vachon took to social media on Saturday. “A version of this did happen. It has been a nightmare,” she wrote in a Facebook post that it is understood has since been made private.

“And PLEASE — if you are tempted to finger wag or admonish us that ‘that’s what you get for casting a straight actor’ — DON’T.

“This was HIS project that he brought to US – and Killer’s record on working with LGBTQ actors/crew/directors speaks for itself. (and for those of you who HAVE — know that you are making a terrible situation even worse).”

Vachon and Haynes have collaborated for decades on a roster featuring Far From Heaven, I’m Not There, May December, Carol, The Velvet Underground, Safe, and Poison.

Speaking at the American Pavilion in Cannes last year, Haynes said Phoenix had brought the idea to him and the pair developed the screenplay with Jon Raymond.

The 1930-set drama revolved around two men who fall in love and leave California for Mexico. Danny Ramirez from Top Gun: Maverick was cast as Phoenix’s love interest. 

At the time Haynes said he believed the film would get an NC-17 rating, which the Motion Picture Association gives to features containing extreme episodes of graphic sex, violence, or drug use. mk2 Films boarded the project as sales agent prior to EFM in Berlin.

Phoenix’s reasons for departing Haynes’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated May December remain unclear. He is expected to attend Venice Film Festival for the upcoming world premiere of Joker: Folie a Deux.

A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site Screen

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