One step forward, two huge steps back for Motor City. All seemed well and good after one long, crazy search for a lead actor ended with Gerard Butler‘s casting, but Variety reports — in a story pertaining to Dark Castle’s new horror thriller, Loft — that, much to the chagrin of Albert Hughes, Gary Oldman and Amber Heard “are no longer involved with the project.” [ThePlaylist]

These weren’t some small-time roles, either. Oldman would have played the villain, “a kingpin-type” that the main character is trying to get vengeance on, while Heard‘s role would be that of our protagonist’s one true love — so, yes, this is a pair of positions you don’t ever want to have vacated. Some think the respective production on films like Machete Kills, RoboCop, and press rounds for The Dark Knight Rises have put the kibosh on it all, and I certainly hope that’s the case; it’d be much worse if they left because things were falling apart behind-the-scenes.

Motor City will, so long as they want to keep things up, probably find its (let’s be honest, not-as-good) replacements at a quick clip, but the film’s become a good deal less interesting in the span of one story. This project just can’t catch a break.

Further into that realm, Variety has also heard that Lionsgate’s Dirty Dancing remake — a film that Kenny Ortega (High School Musical) was tapped to direct about ten months ago — won’t be going forward for at least another year. Although a release date was set for July 26th, 2013, the merger between Summit and Lionsgate makes this something of a lower priority with the two and, thus, will just have to wait. I think the rest of us can do that ourselves with little effort.

Are you disappointed about these two departures? Was Dirty Dancing of interest to yourself?