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Monday
13Jul2009

Denzel Jumps Off Tony Scott's 'Unstoppable' Train

DateMonday, July 13, 2009 at 11:14PM
After Fox pumped the brakes on an escalating budget for Tony Scott's Unstoppable, the writing was kind of on the wall: Denzel Washington would have to take a lower salary or Scott would have to find a cheaper way to pay for everything else. Denzel took the decision out of the studio's and Scott's hands by walking away from the project completely.

According to Variety, Fox wanted to whittle another $10 million off a $100 million budget that started a few million higher than that. Among its stipulations was that Washington cut his salary by 20%, or down to a paltry $16 million. Scott was asked to reduce his fee from $9 million to $6 million. Scott and Fox remain aboard the runaway train of a runaway train movie, but Washington would not budget on his demands.

Where all of this leaves Chris Pine, who took this project over a handful of others after the success of Star Trek, is hard to speculate. No doubt, the film loses a little something minus Denzel, but there are plenty of actors in the $10 - $15 million neighborhood who could fill the role fairly admirably.

What is certain is that Denzel is looking at his world through rose colored glasses. The age of the $20 million star is still with us, but there are a lot fewer of them than we saw a handful of years ago. Denzel's recent slate of films hasn't been incredibly successful outside of American Gangster. The point is, as great as he is, Denzel's not earning his keep, so the request to drop his salary to $16 million, which itself would be hard for him to justify in the current environment.

Fox is apparently still willing to negotiate with Washington, but it sounds like this one's going back to the drawing board.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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