Denzel Washington Drops Out of Tony Scott’s Unstoppable
So the Unstoppable project is anything but that. What seemed like a match made in heaven with Tony Scott and Denzel Washington teaming up for the fifth time and then the casting of Chris Pine (who made waves as the new Captain Kirk) it just seemed like a massive project.
Then reality set in and the studio decided to hold the project and reassess its budget. 20th Century Fox claimed that they were wrestling hard with the cost of mounting a big-scale action picture plus the star salaries of Scott, Washington and Pine, who as we mentioned, chose this film as his next project since his breakout role as Captain Kirk.
Now the inevitable has happened and its star Denzel Washington has dropped out of the project. According to Variety, the actor dropped out after waiting over three months for the studio to secure a budget and a fall start date. The actor is now looking for another project.
Tony Scott was set to direct the film, which would have found Washington playing a train engineer that jumps into a runaway locomotive full of toxic chemicals. With the help of a young conductor (Chris Pine), the two must stop the train before hitting a hairpin turn and decimating a small town. Washington was asked to shave $4 million off his $20 million asking price, but the actor declined the offer.
The studio is now shopping the project around to other actors. At this time, Tony Scott is still attached to direct and Chris Pine is still attached to co-star. This project is not starting to sound good but here is an idea - eliminate the role of the old engineer and make just revolve around a young inexperienced engineer on his first day and he has to stop a train from decimating a small town. You make it a complete starring vehicle for Pine. That way you have your salary cut and you can amortize that over to action costs. Just a thought.
Anyway it will be interesting to see if Pine sticks with project or goes off to find his next movie to follow-up Star Trek.
