Martin McDonagh's highly anticipated follow up to "In Bruges" was announced earlier this year to a wave of excitement particularly with Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken as well as Mickey Rourke, who actually passed on Simon West's 'Expendables' sequel in favour of the feature.
It seemed like a great move at the time for Rourke, who was set to take on the perfect art-imitating-life role of a brutal gangster with an strong affinity for pooches. Unfortunately, things haven't exactly panned out too well for Rourke and McDonagh with the actor now revealing he'll no longer be involved, adding in some not-so-complementary parting shots to the Irish helmer.
"The director was a jerkoff. He wanted a whole lot for nothing," Rourke told Moviefone, before responding to questions about his involvement by advising McDonagh that "he can go play with himself."
There doesn't seem to be any hint of tongue-in-cheek here and Rourke typically wears his heart on his sleeve so we're inclined to believe every word here. It's just a shame the two couldn't get along for the sake of the role/project.
Anyway, even with the actor out, we're very excited by the prospect of this project — especially considering the fact McDonagh had more or less written off continuing his career in film at the time of "In Bruges" success. He followed that up with the play "A Behanding In Spokane" where he worked with two of his the stars here (Walken and Rockwell) as well as Anthony Mackie and Zoe Kazan. Here's an extended synopsis of the film courtesy of Collider;
From Oscar-winning writer and director Martin McDonagh comes a star-studded, blood-drenched, black comedy. Marty (Farrell) is a struggling writer who dreams of finishing his screenplay 'Seven Psychopaths.' All he needs is a little focus and inspiration.
Billy (Rockwell) is Marty's best friend, an unemployed actor and part time dog thief, who wants to help Marty by any means necessary. Hans (Walken) is Billy's partner in crime. A religious man with a violent past. Charlie is the psychopathetic gangster whose beloved dog, Billy and Hans have just stolen. Charlie's unpredictable, extremely violent and wouldn't think twice about killing anyone or anything associated with the theft. Marty is going to get all the focus and inspiration he needs, just as long as he lives to tell the tale.
Last we heard, CBS FIlms were also looking to co-finance and distribute the film, which is set to begin lensing this fall. With all due respect for Rourke, we're sure there's a line of actors that goes down the block who are willing to take the seemingly explosive role so we doubt scheduling will be affected by this setback.