Post by waterslide on Feb 5, 2024 2:00:42 GMT
I never really heard anything about Jake Gyllenhaal being hard to work with, or being this bizarre, so I thought this was kind of an amusing story (though maybe not for the French director trying to make his first English-language movie). We rarely hear about actors behaving badly anymore.
IGN
But also:
Variety
The Strange Saga of Jake Gyllenhaal, a French Director, and Their Indie Film That Wasn't
What happened and why is Jake Gyllenhaal jumping into the Icelandic sea?
Alex Stedman Avatar
BY ALEX STEDMAN
UPDATED: FEB 1, 2024 4:28 PM
POSTED: FEB 1, 2024 7:12 AM
On Wednesday, a report emerged from French publication Technikart in which a director, Thomas Bidegain, detailed the four days in which one version of his indie film Suddenly fell apart, seemingly due at least in part to erratic behavior and the insistance of script rewrites from then-producer and star Jake Gyllenhaal.
The report quickly went viral because the details sound, well, pretty wild on first glance. But a statement from the studio behind the movie, Studiocanal, points merely to "normal" creative differences in the production, as does a source close to the production that spoke with IGN.
IGN has obtained the following statement from a Studiocanal spokesperson:
Creative differences are very normal, if unfortunate, regularities in film development. In this case, there were concerns which simply could not be overcome despite great efforts on both sides. We greatly value all our relationships at STUDIOCANAL and are happy that Thomas Bidegain was able to fulfill his vision on the French language version of SUDDENLY. We remain deeply committed to our working partnerships with both Thomas Bidegain and Jake Gyllenhaal, with whom we have always enjoyed a very strong creative relationship.”
To start with the Technikart report, Bidegain said he had been working on the project with Gyllenhaal for more than a year, but things apparently went awry when he and co-star Vanessa Kirby arrived to Iceland, where Bidegain planned to shoot Suddenly with a budget of about $26 million.
By the director's account, it started by Gyllenhaal "summon[ing]" Bidegain and his co-writer to a terrace, where he warned that script revisions may have to be made. "We have to find the truth," Gyllenhaal reportedly said. Gyllenhaal, too, apparently made some bizarre travel demands, including being driven in a car that is "neither red nor white."
During a script read in day 1, Bidegain said Gyllenhaal and Kirby read some of their lines "ironically" in a Pepe Le Pew accent, which the director called "humiliating," but brushed aside. Other anecdotes include Gyllenhaal undressing in front of the crew and swimming in the cold waters of the Icelandic coast, reportedly saying "when I see the sea, I swim in the sea."
Suddenly did eventually hit theaters, but as a French-language film without Gyllenhaal and Kirby. (Image courtesy of Studiocanal)
SUDDENLY DID EVENTUALLY HIT THEATERS, BUT AS A FRENCH-LANGUAGE FILM WITHOUT GYLLENHAAL AND KIRBY. (IMAGE COURTESY OF STUDIOCANAL)
Things apparently came to a head on day 4, when Bidegain claims Gyllenhaal wanted the set builders to sleep in their cars due to COVID concerns (the article, somewhat oddly, notes several times that Gyllenhaal was "terrified" of catching COVID at the time of development, in 2021), and continued to bring up issues with the script. After that, Bidegain pulled the plug, insisting "our visions diverge too much."
A source close to the production, however, points out to IGN that the movie was never greenlit to begin production, and that Gyllenhaal and Kirby had gone to Iceland purely to work on the script, as Bidegain couldn't make it out to New York due to Visa and pandemic lockdown issues. Gyllenhaal and Kirby had no intentions to begin production imminently, and the fact that Bidegain had started building sets was completely unknown to them.
True to the Technikart report, the source tells us that Gyllenhaal and Kirby weren't happy with the script, although it was Bidegain who ultimately canceled the project as it was at the time. It all, per both the Studiocanal statement and our source, boiled down to creative differences.
And, ultimately, the project wasn't a total bust, either. Bidegain claims that Kirby tried to buy the script so she could make it with Gyllenhaal, but not with Bidegain, to which he reportedly refused. Instead, Bidegain made it as a French-language film with Gilles Lellouche and Mélanie Thierry playing the lead couple, which hit French theaters last December.
So, are Bidegain's viral comments just a glimpse into the oddness that is film development? Maybe, but I guess that's Hollywood.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Mélanie Laurent was part of the lead couple. It has been updated with the correct casting.
Thumbnail credit: Photo by Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
What happened and why is Jake Gyllenhaal jumping into the Icelandic sea?
Alex Stedman Avatar
BY ALEX STEDMAN
UPDATED: FEB 1, 2024 4:28 PM
POSTED: FEB 1, 2024 7:12 AM
On Wednesday, a report emerged from French publication Technikart in which a director, Thomas Bidegain, detailed the four days in which one version of his indie film Suddenly fell apart, seemingly due at least in part to erratic behavior and the insistance of script rewrites from then-producer and star Jake Gyllenhaal.
The report quickly went viral because the details sound, well, pretty wild on first glance. But a statement from the studio behind the movie, Studiocanal, points merely to "normal" creative differences in the production, as does a source close to the production that spoke with IGN.
IGN has obtained the following statement from a Studiocanal spokesperson:
Creative differences are very normal, if unfortunate, regularities in film development. In this case, there were concerns which simply could not be overcome despite great efforts on both sides. We greatly value all our relationships at STUDIOCANAL and are happy that Thomas Bidegain was able to fulfill his vision on the French language version of SUDDENLY. We remain deeply committed to our working partnerships with both Thomas Bidegain and Jake Gyllenhaal, with whom we have always enjoyed a very strong creative relationship.”
To start with the Technikart report, Bidegain said he had been working on the project with Gyllenhaal for more than a year, but things apparently went awry when he and co-star Vanessa Kirby arrived to Iceland, where Bidegain planned to shoot Suddenly with a budget of about $26 million.
By the director's account, it started by Gyllenhaal "summon[ing]" Bidegain and his co-writer to a terrace, where he warned that script revisions may have to be made. "We have to find the truth," Gyllenhaal reportedly said. Gyllenhaal, too, apparently made some bizarre travel demands, including being driven in a car that is "neither red nor white."
During a script read in day 1, Bidegain said Gyllenhaal and Kirby read some of their lines "ironically" in a Pepe Le Pew accent, which the director called "humiliating," but brushed aside. Other anecdotes include Gyllenhaal undressing in front of the crew and swimming in the cold waters of the Icelandic coast, reportedly saying "when I see the sea, I swim in the sea."
Suddenly did eventually hit theaters, but as a French-language film without Gyllenhaal and Kirby. (Image courtesy of Studiocanal)
SUDDENLY DID EVENTUALLY HIT THEATERS, BUT AS A FRENCH-LANGUAGE FILM WITHOUT GYLLENHAAL AND KIRBY. (IMAGE COURTESY OF STUDIOCANAL)
Things apparently came to a head on day 4, when Bidegain claims Gyllenhaal wanted the set builders to sleep in their cars due to COVID concerns (the article, somewhat oddly, notes several times that Gyllenhaal was "terrified" of catching COVID at the time of development, in 2021), and continued to bring up issues with the script. After that, Bidegain pulled the plug, insisting "our visions diverge too much."
A source close to the production, however, points out to IGN that the movie was never greenlit to begin production, and that Gyllenhaal and Kirby had gone to Iceland purely to work on the script, as Bidegain couldn't make it out to New York due to Visa and pandemic lockdown issues. Gyllenhaal and Kirby had no intentions to begin production imminently, and the fact that Bidegain had started building sets was completely unknown to them.
True to the Technikart report, the source tells us that Gyllenhaal and Kirby weren't happy with the script, although it was Bidegain who ultimately canceled the project as it was at the time. It all, per both the Studiocanal statement and our source, boiled down to creative differences.
And, ultimately, the project wasn't a total bust, either. Bidegain claims that Kirby tried to buy the script so she could make it with Gyllenhaal, but not with Bidegain, to which he reportedly refused. Instead, Bidegain made it as a French-language film with Gilles Lellouche and Mélanie Thierry playing the lead couple, which hit French theaters last December.
So, are Bidegain's viral comments just a glimpse into the oddness that is film development? Maybe, but I guess that's Hollywood.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Mélanie Laurent was part of the lead couple. It has been updated with the correct casting.
Thumbnail credit: Photo by Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
But also:
Director Thomas Bidegain Denies Jake Gyllenhaal’s Behavior Ruined Their Film, but Says ‘We Didn’t Have the Same Vision’
By Elsa Keslassy
French director Thomas Bidegain is setting the record straight about Jake Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby‘s exit from his project “Suddenly.”
An interview with Bidegain that ran last week in the French magazine Technikart got international attention, with the headline “Four Days to Bury a Movie.” The interview suggested that Gyllenhaal and Kirby had left the film in the last stretch of pre-production in Iceland, which resulted in a loss of $26 million.
According to the story, Gyllenhaal dove into the freezing ocean, demanded multiple rewrites and rehearsed scenes in a mocking “Pepe Le Pew-like accent.” Though Bidegain wouldn’t address those specific claims, he tells Variety that he parted ways with Gyllenhaal and Kirby over a creative clash, rather than unprofessional behavior on Gyllenhaal’s part. He also claims that, contrary to what is suggested in the French article, the company which financed “Suddenly,” Studiocanal, didn’t lose $26 million because the project wasn’t in production when things fell apart with the leads.
“People don’t understand how a film is made. We were not shooting, and we were not in pre-production. The tentative date of the shoot was eight weeks away,” Bidegain says. “This project came together during the pandemic, so we had only discussed via Zoom. We would talk every week, but we had not met to talk about the film.
“So I came up with the idea of setting up that week in Iceland to read the script together, with Jake and Vanessa,” Bidegain continues. “I thought it would be good to meet there, since it was where we were thinking of shooting the movie, and it’s a beautiful place.”
Over the course of a year, Gyllenhaal had become a producer on the film — along with Alain Attal’s Tresor Films — and he was looking to have more creative input.
“I’d send the updated script every week, and had a nice back-and-forth with [Pulitzer Prize-winning author] David Lindsay-Abaire, who was working with Jake on the development,” Bidegain says. “We had just done a new version of the script that incorporated the latest changes, and I did a lot of Zooms with Jake and Vanessa, so I thought the three of us were on the same page. So when we met in Iceland, I assumed that we would just put the finishing touches on it.”
Confiming one part of the Technikart story — about the stars’ rewrite demands — Bidegain says: “But when we started reading the script in the same room, we realized that we didn’t have at all the same vision of what the film was meant to be. They wanted more and more changes. It’s normal when there are changes to the script before shooting, but this was different. We each had our own idea of what the message of the film was. I tried to smooth things over once, twice — and then I just realized it wasn’t going to work out, so it had to stop.”
After four days, Bidegain left Gyllenhaal and Kirby in Iceland and returned to Paris. He says he remembers “driving down, and seeing Jake and Vanessa in a car driving in the opposite direction.”
The article said the breaking point came after Gyllenhaal had an epiphany during a walk in the wilderness where he encountered a horse, and decided “it shouldn’t be a film about love, but a film about love of nature.” Bidegain recounted in the article that Kirby, meanwhile, wanted the film to have a more definite feminist edge with a radical ending. Bidegain says his vision of the film rested somewhere in the middle: “It’s a film about love, but also love of nature, and it does have a strong female character.”
Some time after this clash, Bidegain says Kirby contacted him to inquire whether she could buy the script from him. “She was interested by the script. She has a production company,” he says. “I said ‘no.'”
“Suddenly” did end up getting made, but with a French cast including Gilles Lellouche and Melanie Thierry — at roughly half of the budget. The French producer, Attal, and financier/distributor Studiocanal stayed on board. Titled “Soudain seuls,” the film was released on Dec. 6 in France, and had a fairly modest run at the box office, selling about 250,000 tickets.
Bidegain is one of France’s most successful screenwriters. He notably co-wrote Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet,” as well as “The Sisters Brothers” (which also starred Gyllenhaal) and co-wrote Tom McCarthy’s “Stillwater,” the Matt Damon film set in Marseille. Bidegain made his directorial debut with “Les cowboys” in 2015 and went on to direct a segment in the omnibus film “Selfie.” “Suddenly” was meant to be his first English-language film as a director.
Studiocanal commented on Gyllenhaal’s exit from the project, saying: “Creative differences are very normal, if unfortunate, regularities in film development. In this case, there were concerns which simply could not be overcome despite great efforts on both sides.”
Bidegain says part of the challenge he faced on “Suddenly” came from the fact that he had never worked with an actor who is also a producer. “It’s a very strange experience when you work with an actor-producer who doesn’t have the same vision than the director — in France, the director is the one in charge of the telling the story, and he’s in charge of the script, the set design, etc.,” Bidegain says.
Ultimately, Bidegain attributes the split to that clash, adding: “We have very different ways to make films in France and in the U.S.”
A spokesperson for Gyllenhaal declined to comment on this article. Representatives for Kirby did not respond to a request for comment.
By Elsa Keslassy
French director Thomas Bidegain is setting the record straight about Jake Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby‘s exit from his project “Suddenly.”
An interview with Bidegain that ran last week in the French magazine Technikart got international attention, with the headline “Four Days to Bury a Movie.” The interview suggested that Gyllenhaal and Kirby had left the film in the last stretch of pre-production in Iceland, which resulted in a loss of $26 million.
According to the story, Gyllenhaal dove into the freezing ocean, demanded multiple rewrites and rehearsed scenes in a mocking “Pepe Le Pew-like accent.” Though Bidegain wouldn’t address those specific claims, he tells Variety that he parted ways with Gyllenhaal and Kirby over a creative clash, rather than unprofessional behavior on Gyllenhaal’s part. He also claims that, contrary to what is suggested in the French article, the company which financed “Suddenly,” Studiocanal, didn’t lose $26 million because the project wasn’t in production when things fell apart with the leads.
“People don’t understand how a film is made. We were not shooting, and we were not in pre-production. The tentative date of the shoot was eight weeks away,” Bidegain says. “This project came together during the pandemic, so we had only discussed via Zoom. We would talk every week, but we had not met to talk about the film.
“So I came up with the idea of setting up that week in Iceland to read the script together, with Jake and Vanessa,” Bidegain continues. “I thought it would be good to meet there, since it was where we were thinking of shooting the movie, and it’s a beautiful place.”
Over the course of a year, Gyllenhaal had become a producer on the film — along with Alain Attal’s Tresor Films — and he was looking to have more creative input.
“I’d send the updated script every week, and had a nice back-and-forth with [Pulitzer Prize-winning author] David Lindsay-Abaire, who was working with Jake on the development,” Bidegain says. “We had just done a new version of the script that incorporated the latest changes, and I did a lot of Zooms with Jake and Vanessa, so I thought the three of us were on the same page. So when we met in Iceland, I assumed that we would just put the finishing touches on it.”
Confiming one part of the Technikart story — about the stars’ rewrite demands — Bidegain says: “But when we started reading the script in the same room, we realized that we didn’t have at all the same vision of what the film was meant to be. They wanted more and more changes. It’s normal when there are changes to the script before shooting, but this was different. We each had our own idea of what the message of the film was. I tried to smooth things over once, twice — and then I just realized it wasn’t going to work out, so it had to stop.”
After four days, Bidegain left Gyllenhaal and Kirby in Iceland and returned to Paris. He says he remembers “driving down, and seeing Jake and Vanessa in a car driving in the opposite direction.”
The article said the breaking point came after Gyllenhaal had an epiphany during a walk in the wilderness where he encountered a horse, and decided “it shouldn’t be a film about love, but a film about love of nature.” Bidegain recounted in the article that Kirby, meanwhile, wanted the film to have a more definite feminist edge with a radical ending. Bidegain says his vision of the film rested somewhere in the middle: “It’s a film about love, but also love of nature, and it does have a strong female character.”
Some time after this clash, Bidegain says Kirby contacted him to inquire whether she could buy the script from him. “She was interested by the script. She has a production company,” he says. “I said ‘no.'”
“Suddenly” did end up getting made, but with a French cast including Gilles Lellouche and Melanie Thierry — at roughly half of the budget. The French producer, Attal, and financier/distributor Studiocanal stayed on board. Titled “Soudain seuls,” the film was released on Dec. 6 in France, and had a fairly modest run at the box office, selling about 250,000 tickets.
Bidegain is one of France’s most successful screenwriters. He notably co-wrote Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet,” as well as “The Sisters Brothers” (which also starred Gyllenhaal) and co-wrote Tom McCarthy’s “Stillwater,” the Matt Damon film set in Marseille. Bidegain made his directorial debut with “Les cowboys” in 2015 and went on to direct a segment in the omnibus film “Selfie.” “Suddenly” was meant to be his first English-language film as a director.
Studiocanal commented on Gyllenhaal’s exit from the project, saying: “Creative differences are very normal, if unfortunate, regularities in film development. In this case, there were concerns which simply could not be overcome despite great efforts on both sides.”
Bidegain says part of the challenge he faced on “Suddenly” came from the fact that he had never worked with an actor who is also a producer. “It’s a very strange experience when you work with an actor-producer who doesn’t have the same vision than the director — in France, the director is the one in charge of the telling the story, and he’s in charge of the script, the set design, etc.,” Bidegain says.
Ultimately, Bidegain attributes the split to that clash, adding: “We have very different ways to make films in France and in the U.S.”
A spokesperson for Gyllenhaal declined to comment on this article. Representatives for Kirby did not respond to a request for comment.
