It seems the saga of David O. Russell‘s “Nailed” isn’t quite ready to end just yet. Or at the very least, it’s not fading quietly into the night. Where to begin? We’ll try and keep it brief. The once promising movie started shooting in the spring of 2008 with Jessica Biel, Jake Gyllenhaal, Catherine Keener, Tracy Morgan and James Marsden all in the cast, but things quickly went down hill. Plagued with dodgy financing, production started and stopped a handful of times as crew members waited to get paid, eventually shutting down completely with only one day of filming left to complete it. The movie then changed legal hands but Russell wasn’t able to come to terms with the new owners to finish it. Regardless, producers tried to press on without Russell to finish the movie, and in the spring of 2011 a rough assembly cut was screened (check out our reader report). All this to say, Russell washed his hands of this project a long time ago. But could we be close to seeing some version of this?
Fansite Jessica Biel Central has done some digging and noticed that production company K. Jam Media (nope, never heard of ’em either) are claiming “Nailed” is arriving in late 2013. We’ll see about that. Penned by Kristin Gore, the film centers on Alice Eckle (Biel), a socially awkward and uninsured waitress (Biel) who accidentally gets shot in the head with a nail. She goes to Washington on a crusade to fight for the rights of the bizarrely injured and meets an immoral congressman, played by Gyllenhaal, who takes advantage of her sexually and politically. Great premise, but that one day left of shooting that Russel never got to finish? It involved the crucial scene of Alice getting shot in the head, which sets the movie in motion. Granted, in the rough cut screening our reader saw, a messy version of the scene was included with a note saying “to be reshot” — maybe they’ll clean that up as best as they can or edit it in such a way that it can be used? We’ll see.
Anyway, some images from the movie have also popped up showing lots Biel as well as Gyllenhaal. Will this be the closest we get to a completed movie, or has someone figured out a way to finish the pic to make it somewhat releasable? (And if so, will Russell’s name even be on the credits considering he didn’t complete filming or edit it?). Time will tell.