Denzel Washington Not So ‘Unstoppable’

With the recession giving movie executives a fake reason to start saying “no!” to people (the numbers are undeniable — box office receipts are well ahead of last year’s pace), we’re seeing a lot of musical chairs as projects start to slowly collapse into a heap of failed ambition, miscommunication, and misplaced ego. Sometimes this results in interesting fare like Steven Soderbergh’s “Moneyball” dying on the vine. More often that not, it deep-sixes troublesome projects that no one saw as a slam dunk in the first place. Enter “Unstoppable.”

Denzel Washington was to headline the picture, which would feature him as a conductor who teams with a younger protege played by Chris Pine to stop a runaway train loaded with toxic chemicals. Aside from the ’60s “Batman” premise, and the involvement of shaky action go-to guy Tony Scott, Fox felt so uncertain about the film that efforts have been underway to trim the budget, from $107 million to $100 million, back down to a low-$90 figure. To do this, they were going to require Denzel to trim his salary from $20 million to $16, which Variety says he has refused to do, though apparently they also wished that Tony Scott would cut his fee from $9 million to $6 million.

Wait, hold the fucking phone.

Tony Scott gets $9 million a movie? Tony Scott could make $6 million on this movie? Are we serious? We’re talking one of the very worst action filmmakers working in the genre today. We could somewhat understand this if the guy were even bankable, but they’re giving him a $100 million budget when the guy’s made ONE movie that’s grossed over $100 million since 1987, and “Enemy Of The State,” like all Tony Scott pictures not very good, was ELEVEN years ago. Scott’s last film, the train-centric “The Taking Of Pelham 123,” was a typical nonstarter, taking in only $61 million domestically, with foreign prospects for the NY-centric film not looking too strong. This guy made “Domino”— in some countries, that sort of transgression gets you stoned to death in the streets.

Denzel seems oddly joined at the hip to Tony Scott, one of many dubious associations he’s made in his time on the A-List, but the most consistent- this would’ve been their fifth collaboration. You’d think he would’ve realized doing two dumb-sounding train-themed movies with the same terrible director would be a bad career move. Regardless, if he wasn’t willing to hack 20% off his salary for a guy he’s worked with four times previously, he must clearly be in it for the cash. Unless he left the project in a show of solidarity regarding the request to Scott to cut his fee, but Denzel seems smarter than that — he should know Scott’s lucky to get that sort of money, even when back-end deals lead to schmucks like Michael Bay pulling in more than $150 million off the profits of the latest “Transformers.”

What does this mean for all parties involved? Fox has had an eye on developing this movie for a long time, and without Tony Scott swinging his big dick around, its possible they can downgrade to an $80 million budget and a cheaper, more interesting director, but they’ll also need a new leading man, which might be too tall an order. With Scott having other projects in the pipeline, from a “Hunger” sequel to a “Warriors” remake, and Denzel possibly opting to jump back onboard David Cronenberg’s “The Matarese Circle,” it’s possible Fox might scuttle the project, leaving poor Chris Pine unemployed until the next “Star Trek” is green lit. C’mon, Fox, give Pine some non-Kirk work- you don’t want him becoming the next Tobey Maguire, hopelessly strapped to one franchise until his looks vanish into an ugly puddle, do you?