Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix (Photo: Shutterstock)

Queer film fans are still pissed at Joaquin Phoenix for getting cold feet over an NC-17 gay romance he was set to star in, reportedly dropping out five days before the shoot began, leaving acclaimed filmmaker Todd Haynes and his crew in the dust.

“It has been a nightmare,” Haynes’ producing partner Christine Vachon said of the debacle.

Not only was Phoenix going to be one of the leads—opposite rising star Danny Ramirez—but the untitled film was based on his idea, telling the story of two men in 1930s LA who fall in love and have to flee to Mexico.

His sudden and unexpected departure left the production with very few options, and a new scoop from The Hollywood Reporter says Haynes and his team contemplated a number of “eleventh hour attempts” to salvage the production. Could anyone with enough box-office draw replace Phoenix on such short notice?

The piece suggests Pedro Pascal as an alluring sub, but his jam-packed schedule (including Marvel’s new spin on Fantastic Four and The Mandalorian movie), means it was never all that likely. Not to mention, the film was pitched as an interracial romance, so an unnamed talent rep tells THR, “having two Latinos in the roles doesn’t make a lot of sense”—though we would have certainly loved to see that!

Haynes’ gay love story seemingly doomed, the industry’s attention has now turned to how this might hurt Phoenix’s career going forward.

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Per THR, the Oscar-winning actor has a reputation for waffling on projects and threatening to drop out at the latest minute, citing 2019’s anti-hero origin story The Joker, 2021’s sweet indie C’mon C’mon, and 2023’s historical epic Napoleon as movies that allegedly also almost lost Phoenix before he “settled down.”

Of course, he didn’t stick around in this instance, and his rash decision has left a number of Haynes’ film crew—who had already put significant pre-production work into the feature—unpaid and out of a job, which does not reflect well on the A-lister.

It’s also been suggested the film’s producers might hit Phoenix with a lawsuit to cover the lost costs, which could “amount to several million dollars.” But it’s unlikely such an action would convince him to come back, especially considering money shouldn’t be much of an issue after his reported $25 million pay day for this fall’s Joker: Folie à Deux.

Speaking of, this whole saga is starting to look like more and more of an issue for the Lady Gaga-starring blockbuster sequel…

What the Joaquin Phoenix controversy means for Joker: Folie à Deux

It’s been rumored that Folie à Deux somehow cost upwards of $200 million to make, which is quite shocking when stacked up against the $60 million budget for The Joker. And, sure, the 2019 film went on to gross over a billion dollars worldwide, but as entertainment news source Slash Film points out, this one feels much riskier, with precedent for superhero sequels that “get needlessly expensive only to crash and burn.”

It is, after all, a musical, and it’s way less likely for that genre to translate at the global box office. And while most gays would jump at the chance to see Gaga bring some razzle-dazzle to the big screen, will they be less inclined to want to support the film now that Phoenix has ghosted Todd Haynes, one of our community’s most beloved filmmakers?

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In a new Variety cover story, Folie à Deux director Todd Phillips dismisses the ballooning budget rumors, but doesn’t outright refute them. He defends high production costs as an almost Robin Hood-like feat, taking the money from a big Hollywood studio and putting it toward hiring “a bunch of crew people who can then feed their families.”

Okay, but doesn’t it stand to reason that the massive amounts of money spent on just one exorbitantly expensive movie could’ve instead gone to multiple, smaller scale movies, thereby paying even more crew members?

Especially at a time when studios are cutting back on smaller and mid-budgeted projects only to fund hypothetical blockbusters (*cough* Disney’s $80 million payday for Robert Downey Jr. to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe *cough*), it’s not a good look.

And it’s not hard to understand how this directly impacts stories told by and for minority audiences including the LGBTQ+ community. Phoenix’s Joker paycheck alone could entirely fund a gay romance—or two!

But we digress…

For now, we’re left to wonder how much promotion the notoriously press shy Phoenix will do for Folie à Deux, especially in light of the Todd Haynes movie controversy. The actor does have a few quotes it the aforementioned Variety cover story, but writer Brent Lang notes the interview was conducted over email before he unceremoniously ditched the gay love story.

The Joker sequel is due to make its world premiere in a few short weeks at the Venice Film Festival, and it would be pretty odd if Phoenix didn’t attend, in which case we can’t imagine a world where is case of cold feet doesn’t come up.

Whether or not he addresses it and apologizes will likely be the dominating talking point of the Folie à Deux press tour—and that’s saying a lot considering notorious yapper Lady Gaga (we say that lovingly) is involved. You better believe we’ll be following this one closely!

Joker: Folie à Deux opens in theaters everywhere on October 4.

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