We won’t bore you with the nitty gritty details or history of MGM’s financial woes (and to be perfectly fair, it’s not like we’ve been keeping pace with every step of that riveting accounting drama) but needless to say the company is in dire straights. Of course, there is the “The Hobbit,” the highest profile film caught up in the studio’s monetary quagmire. “Bond 23” was put on hiatus by its producers citing the instability of the studio, and completed films “Red Dawn” and “Cabin In The Woods” have been put on the shelf as MGM has no resources to properly promote and market the films.
At the end of (yet another) Deadline piece about the rumored next steps for the studios, there is some not so surprising news regarding the fates of some gestating projects on MGM’s slate. Development on “The Three Stooges,” “The Matarese Circle” & “Robocop” have all stalled along with the rest of the projects in the studio stable.
While this is hardly shocking news, the projects have all seemed to be moving forward within the last year. As early as January, “The Three Stooges” had some buzz build around it when director Bobby Farrelly (who would’ve directed with his brother Peter) confirmed that Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro were circling the film. That would’ve been kind of amazing. As for “Robocop,” which had Darren Aronofsky attached, it was reported in January as well that the studio and director were at loggerheards over whether or not to do the film in 3D. Obviously, they never got that resolved. And as for “The Matarese Circle,” it’s probably the one we’re most bummed about. The adaptation of a Robert Ludlum novel at one point had David Cronenberg attached to direct, with Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington set to star. It’s really the project Tom Cruise should have done instead of “Knight & Day” (at one point, the actor had six projects he was choosing over which also included “The Tourist”), and it’s one we hope finds its way out of this mess and back into Cronenberg’s hands.
Until MGM emerges out of the darkness, don’t expect anything to happen to these films. It is possible they could be moved to another interested studio, but again, that would probably require a mountain of paperwork and realistically, the projects as they once existed will probably never come to pass.