Alfonso Cuarón’s troubled, ambitious and potentially great sci-fi thriller “Gravity” will continue the search for its leading lady as Natalie Portman has officially turned down the lead role.
The news is a major bummer for the $80 million production, which can only move forward if it can find a bankable lead female star to topline the pic. Angelina Jolie was the favored choice but turned down the part twice, so Warner Bros. took a long look at their list of contenders and made an offer to Portman. It was last reported that she was in active negotiations, but clearly, she has moved on.
The question now facing the production is which direction to go in. Cuarón was willing to bring the film in on a smaller budget to get an actress of his choice, but Warner Bros., who are worried about marketing a female-led sci-fi action film (not exactly a guarantee of box office success), want a more bankable name. We imagine they’ll go back and look at recognized names like Sandra Bullock, Naomi Watts and Scarlett Johansson who have been mentioned as candidates while other names linked as potential leads that have included Marion Cotillard, Carey Mulligan, Sienna Miller, Abbie Cornish, Rebecca Hall, Olivia Wilde and Blake Lively.
At this point, we don’t care who is cast really, we just want the film to get made. We hope that Portman’s pass on the project isn’t a harbinger of worse things to come. Here’s hoping Cuarón and Warner Bros. can find a leading lady for the project soon. [Deadline]
The funniest part is Cinematical tried to scoop everyone on the internet by "announcing" last week that Natalie Portman was officially cast here. More proof that that site is written by tards and 12-year-olds.
LMAO Why am I not surprised at all?
WB should just pay Jolie whatever she wants and have this casting done already, it's starting to embarassing with all the actresses turning the project down. Bullock's agent has already said she's not even considering the role.
BRING BACK ANGELINA!!! 😀
@acksitch
It's more that people can't fucking read these days.
It's like the Hobbit story. Deadline didn't advance shit, but all the lemmings out there just followed suit and said it was confirmed.
it will be, but it's not yet.
why do all the ladies keep turning this project down?
They probably never improved the script much. The first pass that leaked out there… the supporting RDJ character was infintitely more interesting.
The female character is incredibly thinly drawn. Hopefully they fleshed her out, but given that everyone and their mom in Hollywood has passed on it, maybe not.
I refuse to believe that the script is infact the reason everyone's turning the project down, I mean Alfonso couldn't possibly write a bad script could he? :(((