Last month, a week after Hugh Hefner passed away, it was announced that the movie centered on the Playboy founder was finally moving forward after spending a decade in development hell. Rush Hour series director Brett Ratner has been the driving force for getting this project off the ground, and the plan was for him to helm this biopic, which reportedly would have starred Jared Leto as Hefner. However, due to the sexual harassment allegations that have been directed against Ratner, it's been announced that the Hugh Hefner biopic has been scrapped.
Earlier today, six women, including model Natasha Henstridge and actress Olivia Munn, publicly accused of Brett Ratner of sexually harassing them. Hours after this news broke, Playboy Enterprises announced that it was putting all of its projects with RatPac Entertainment, Ratner's production company, on hold until it could "review the situation further." Soon after that, the company told Yahoo that the Hugh Hefner biopic has been cancelled. Yahoo also learned from Jared Leto's representative that the actor was never attached to the biopic, and that he has no plans to collaborate with Ratner.
The Hugh Hefner biopic has had quite a few ups and downs since 2007, when Brett Ratner first expressed interest in making the movie. At one point, Robert Downey Jr. was attached to play the media mogul. It's unclear if Playboy Enterprises will attempt to get a new version of the Hugh Hefner biopic up and running once a director and/or producer has been found, but it's clear now that the movie Brett Ratner wanted to make is no more. Hefner, who founded Playboy Magazine in 1953, died on September 27 at the age of 91.
As for Brett Ratner, whose other credits include Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand and Hercules (the one with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), following the allegations directed against him, he announced that he would step away from all of his Warner Bros-related activities. THR revealed shortly thereafter that WB has severed ties with him. Along with with his first-look deal with the studio not being renewed, Ratner is losing his RatPac Entertainment offices, though he remains a partner in the production company. Ratner has also been removed as a producer on The Goldfinch, the only upcoming WB movie where he's been active in such a role. This is the latest sexual harassment scandal to hit Hollywood in recent weeks, with other allegations having been directed towards Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, among others.
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