Here's how close Tony Scott's Unstoppable was to going into production. I was chatting with a friend two days ago about how it might be his next job, and he'd start helping with pre-production in July. Now it looks like that friend is going to have to be looking somewhere else-- THR reports that Fox can't come up with a budget for the film that pleases Scott, and the whole thing will be, ahem, derailed while the money issues are sorted out.
The film about a runaway train, starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine, was probably not helped by The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3's middling performance, proving that Washington and Scott together don't automatically mint money. THR writes that the physical production costs are enormous, not to mention the fact that Washington brings in about $20 million per film.
Is this like Moneyball, the Steven Soderbergh movie that was axed at the last minute because of budget problems? Probably not-- Scott is a way, way more reliable box office draw than Soderbergh, and a high-concept runaway train movie is pretty much inevitable. And whether this is a sign of studios using the recession as an excuse to cut costs, or just Fox being dicks to their talent again, who knows. But we might be seeing Pine as Captain Kirk again before he starts driving this train.
