Despite Warner Bros’ apparently increasingly desperate attempts to persuade Angelina Jolie to join their new sci-fi adventure “Gravity”, she has conclusively decided that she will not be joining the film, leaving WB with a bit of a headache.
Gravity (to be directed by Alfonso Cuaron) is a relatively high-budget film ($80m), set aboard a space station which is damaged by debris from an exploding satellite. The heroine must try against overwhelming odds to make it safely home. Deadline (who grabbed the news on this) describe it as similar to Castaway, in that it will rely upon the pull of the main star, who will be the only person on screen for much of the running time. Factor in as well the significant CGI outlay needed for a film set predominantly in zero-gravity and it is easy to understand WB’s unease at greenlighting the film without a bankable actress on board.
Deadline say that WB tested or approached all manner of actresses, including Sandra Bullock, Natalie Portman, Naomi Watts, Marion Cotillard, Carey Mulligan, Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Abbie Cornish, Rebecca Hall, Olivia Wilde and Blake Lively, after Jolie passed the first time around. Now she has passed a second time, it seems unlikely that she will have a change of heart.
Robert Downey Jr is on board Gravity as the team leader of the space-station, but presumably the script carries so much screen time for the female lead that RDJ’s considerable pull will not be enough on its own to allay WB’s concerns. RDJ will not be free until after he shoots Sherlock Holmes 2 next year and given the considerable slate that Jolie seems to have lined up, she may not be available for a long, long time, even if she were to decide to return to the project.
Nicolas Cage recently dropped out of then suddenly returned to “Trespass”, so never say never. Likewise, Moon showed that a single-hander sci-fi with a less well-known star can succeed on its own merits, however Gravity seems to be pitched as a very differently scaled project from that low-key Sam Rockwell-starrer. Given the wealth of talent that WB seem to have either unsuccessfully courted, or felt to be unsuitable for the project, perhaps they will decide that without Jolie the film will go into turnaround. We will see.
