Hugh Humphreys
So much for a chance encounter with Bradley Cooper in the Star City elevator, girls.
“Paradise Lost” – the big-budget epic set to star Bradley Cooper, is apparently no more.
Production was already pushed back from January to June, and Deadline says the axe fell after with Legendary Pictures deciding they didn’t have the money to do it justice.
It’s a major disappointment for the many people interested in seeing how Alex Proyas would have directed the John Milton classic poem; as well as all the Aussies wanting to have Cooper in their midst while he was filming!
The film’s been stuggling with budget for awhile, with first hopes of getting it under $120 million dashed, delaying production just days before it was set to begin in Sydney. Apparently the studio might wait until the cost of the visual effects comes down – but that could be years.
Rather than simply go the route of say, “Darkman III” and have someone create the effects on a 1995 IBM, the company decided it better just to scrap the movie (http://if.com.au/2012/02/10/article/Alex-Proyas-Paradise-Lost-called-off/KTAWRLWWYS.html Inside Film says Sydney-based sfx company Digital Domain was set to create the bulk of the films effects in the film.)
Proyas (“The Crow”) had cast Cooper as Lucifer, Benjamin Walker as the archangel Michael, Diego Boneta as Adam and Camilla Belle as Eve.
“Paradise Lost” is one of several big-budget movies to have the pin pulled on it due to spiralling costs in recent months. Other casualties of the wallet-war include “At the Mountains of Madness” from Guillermo del Toro, “The Dark Tower” from Ron Howard, “Arthur & Lancelot” from David Dobkin, and “Army of the Dead”, a Vegas-set sequel to “Dawn of the Dead”.
