Now that we’re all good and excited to know that Robert De Niro and Mel Gibson were teaming up to film Edge of Darkness, I may as well tell you that it’s not going to happen. Just days after arriving on the set of the Martin Campbell directed film that began shooting on August 18, De Niro quit the project.
No one is really sure why De Niro left the film. A spokesman for the actor told Variety, “Sometimes things don’t work out, it’s called creative differences.” Since it sounds like a pretty standard fare type of movie, one wonders what sort of creative differences they could have gotten into so quickly.
The film, written by William Monahan, is a crime thriller and is based on a popular BBC miniseries. Mel Gibson is set to star as a seasoned Boston police detective investigating the death of his activist daughter, played by Aussie actress Bojana Novakovic. De Niro would have been playing an operative sent to clean up the evidence in the murder of a young woman.
Hey, maybe they could get Samuel Jackson to reprise his role from The Cleaner and take the part? Police corruption, dead bodies to clean up - sounds like it could work.
At any rate, I’m pretty disappointed. I thought De Niro and Gibson together would have been a great fit. I also thought De Niro could have used a quality film right about now (I’m still a little doubtful about Righteous Kill). I guess we’ll have to wait and see who they replace him with.
Well dat's a shame…. =/
“Creative differences” is interesting given some of the movies he's been in in the past several years.
I think he thought it was a movie about black women, kind of Jungle Fever type movie and once he found out it wasn't he bailed. Boy I am on Spike Lee kick.
He found out the catering truck didn't have twinkies.