No matter how good a project may be, it’s sometimes impossible for an actor to make it work. Red Light Winter, after all, was only revealed in mid-November by Kirsten Dunst, who then slipped that she, Mark Ruffalo, and Billy Crudup would be starring for helmer Adam Rapp and producer Scott Rudin. It all sounded good, and then it was gone.

Come late August, we have an update of mixed nature. Variety tell us, sadly, that Ruffalo and Crudup will be dropping the project — probably on account of schedules, though that’s by no means confirmed — while Ben Foster is being put into the former’s once-possible role. (The other is vacated but, in the producers’ hopes, not for long.) With this new development, Red Light Winter can still get underway at the end of this year or, even, around the start of 2013.

Unfortunate as this may all be, the promising set-up has not changed. As was the case with Rapp‘s acclaimed play of the same name, Light depicts Matt and Davis, two New York buddies whose trip to Amsterdam — one which they intend to litter with the likes of marijuana and illicit, sexy sex — brings about a love triangle with a Dutch prostitute, Christina (Dunst), an experience that proves to expose “dark undercurrents in their troubled friendship.” Additionally, Katherine Waterston (Being Flynn, Taking Woodstock) is also joining as a woman who “shares a romantic past with both men.”

With a premise that already worked in one medium, and the retained presence of Dunst, there’s still a whole lot to like about Red Light Winter — Foster among them. Although I do, regardless, think it would have worked better with the original two leads, I’m going in open-minded, hoping they can even find a second lead capable of creating a dynamic equal to Ruffalo and Crudup. Since it’s held on this long, there’s no reason to be pessimistic.

With Foster taking over and Dunst still aboard, do you have hope for Red Light Winter?