Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon has exited the Collateral Beauty movie
After losing Rooney Mara in September, as well as a game of leading man musical chairs that saw Hugh Jackman exit and Johnny Depp courted, the Collateral Beauty movie looked all set to roll this fall with Will Smith starring and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon signed to helm. Now the troubled project has hit another snag as Deadline reports that Gomez-Rejon has exited the picture over creative differences with studio New Line Cinema, which picked up the film last month.
This marks the second major director walk-off on a recent New Line project after filmmaker Cary Fukunaga bailed on his adaptation of Stephen King’s IT after working on the project for several years, also due to clashes with the studio shortly after they acquired IT. Fukunaga was swiftly replaced by Andrés Muschietti, although there is no word on who might take over Collateral Beauty, especially given the poor luck it has already suffered.
The film, set to co-star Jason Segel, centers on a New York advertising executive (Smith) who experiences a deep personal tragedy. His colleagues devise an unconventional plan to break him out of his depression — which works — but not in a way that anyone imagined.
The PalmStar Media and Likely Story project is produced by Anonymous Content’s Michael Sugar and Bard Dorros, along with Allan Loeb, who wrote the script. Palmstar CEO Kevin Frakes will executive produce with Anthony Bregman of Likely Story and Steven Pearl. Smith’s Overbrook will co-produce.
Filming on the Collateral Beauty movie was expected to start this month.
(Photo credit: WENN)
