David Zaslav isn’t the only one in Hollywood completely scrapping already-shot feature films. This week brings news that a pair of high-profile forthcoming films in various stages of post-production will never see the light of day.
First up, last year Michel Gondry shot Golden (formerly titled Atlantis), inspired by the childhood of Pharrell Williams and featuring the epic cast of Kelvin Harrison Jr., Halle Bailey, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Brian Tyree Henry, Janelle Monáe, Missy Elliott, Quinta Brunson, Anderson .Paak, and Jaboukie Young-White. Universal Pictures had set a release for May 5, but now Variety reports the $20 million film has been scrapped “after unanimous agreement from producers and Gondry that the film did not live up to its developed conceit.”
“When all of us got into the editing room we collectively decided there wasn’t a path forward to tell the version of this story that we originally envisioned,” Williams and Gondry said in a joint statement. “We appreciate all the hard work of the talented cast and crew. While we’re disappointed we can’t deliver this film, we have incredible partners at Universal and will collaborate in a different capacity again soon.”
With the film scrapped, all that ever will see the light of day is the below still, revealed by Empire last fall. In a strange bit of unintentional foreshadowing, Gondry’s previous feature The Book of Solutions (which will likely finally get a U.S. release this year) is a meta tale following a filmmaker struggling with the editing of his big-budget project.
We also heard this week that Ezra Edelman, following his nearly eight-hour documentary O.J.: Made in America, completed a nine-hour documentary on Prince, with exclusive access to his personal archives, but Netflix has now scrapped the film. This comes after a must-read report from the New York Times last fall regarding how Prince’s estate and Edelman clashed on the making of the film, with the director including tales of the singer’s abuse as relayed by his ex-girlfriends as well as how he abandoned his wife Mayte Garcia after they lost their child.
“The Prince Estate and Netflix have come to a mutual agreement that will allow the estate to develop and produce a new documentary featuring exclusive content from Prince’s archive,” Netflix said in a statement to Variety. “As a result, the Netflix documentary will not be released.”
Edelman spent four years of his life working on the film.