Last week, Joaquin Phoenix’s latest film, “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot” was released in select theaters. The highly-anticipated film has been receiving a lot of buzz for Phoenix and filmmaker Gus Van Sant as a potential awards contender. And for good reason, as it appears it’s yet another film that Phoenix has knocked out of the park. But, according to Van Sant, it wasn’t always going to be Phoenix in the lead.
In the latest WTF Podcast with Marc Maron, the filmmaker details the genesis of his latest project, and how it all began over 20 years ago with Robin Williams. “It was something that I worked on in the ‘90s,” said Van Sant. “Robin Williams was one of the originators of the project…as the lead. He was developing it.”
READ MORE: Joaquin Phoenix In ‘Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot’ [Sundance Review]
He then goes on to describe how after the success of their first collaboration, Williams approached Van Sant about the story of cartoonist John Callahan in 1997. “After Robin and I worked together on ‘Good Will Hunting,’ he offered me this particular story to develop for him. So, I had developed a couple scripts with Robin and it was just one of those projects that he never got to,” the filmmaker explained.
So, how did the script resurface after all these years and become the latest film from Van Sant? Sadly, it was due to a tragic circumstance. “And eventually when Robin had died, it surfaced again at Sony. They called me and said, ‘What do we do with this?’” said Van Sant.
Thankfully, for film fans, Van Sant decided to dust off the old scripts and begin developing the film with another lead in mind. One can’t help but wonder how Williams would have excelled in the role, but if you can’t have the comedic legend, then Joaquin Phoenix isn’t a bad back-up.
“Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot” is in select theaters now and will expand in the coming weeks.
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