Olivier Assayas’ recent festival darling, Clouds Of Sils Maria, wowed audiences because he summoned a performance from Twilight‘s Kristen Stewart that made the world sit up and take notice. Whether her co-star and former beau, Robert Pattinson, was hoping to receive the same treatment, we’ll sadly never know. The French director’s next title, Idol’s Eye, slated to star Pattinson, Robert De Niro and Rachel Weisz has now been axed.
It seems that despite three major stars attached to topline, their involvement wasn’t enough to save the movie. Per Deadline, filming on the movie was scheduled to begin in October, taking in two locations – Chicago and Toronto, but the production hit money troubles late in the day. One of the financiers on the project, Benaroya Films, backed out at the last minute after two of the other production houses involved failed to secure sufficient funds.
The film was to be a ’70s gangster drama that revolved around a bunch of low-life thieves who rob a porn store only to discover it’s actually a front for the mob. Ordinarily, that type of description sounds like perfect straight-to-video Netflix fodder; but with Assayas in the director’s chair it truly could have been an interesting character-driven piece.
But all is not lost, as the leading production house explained in their press release. According to Benaroya Pictures, they fully intend to initiate development further down the line. You can read the entire document below, which certainly suggests that we may see Idol’s Eye at a later date.
“Due to the criteria for financing not being met by producers, Benaroya Pictures has formally decided to discontinue financing the motion picture titled Idol’s Eye.”
“The company cannot continue to put its investment at risk and has been forced to stop cash flowing the production. This is something all of us wanted to avoid, but due to the producers missing a number of financing criteria deadlines that were mutually established by all parties, we were left with no other options. Benaroya Pictures plans to retain the rights of the film and move forward with production on the picture after we generate a revised script and assemble a new filmmaking team.”