The movie the Coen brothers will always regret not making: “It wasn’t anybody’s fault”
Despite their radical levels of success, the Coen brothers are no less immune to the same forces of evil in Hollywood as the next directing duo. The pair have directed cult classic films such as The Big Lebowski, Fargo and No Country for Old Men, defining an indefinable style that flits between genres, creating a slate of stories that are wholly unlike each one that came before.
Despite their chameleonic style, the brothers have created a satirical undertone and dark sense of humour that marks each project, whether it be the constant slew of mishaps and comical misunderstandings in Burn After Reading or the nihilistic tone of A Serious Man, adding a unique edge to their overall filmography.
However, while they are working at the top of their game and you’d imagine they’d have their pick of the bunch when it comes to funding new projects, the pair have had as many stepbacks and hurdles as the next Hollywood director, describing a fateful film that sadly never saw the light of day.
In recent years, there have been many announcements made on Deadline and Variety about films that have never been made. Whether it be Luca Guadagnino’s alleged Scarface adaptation or the sci-fi thriller from Lynne Ramsay that was shortly scrapped, cinema lovers have been endlessly teased with the idea of potentially groundbreaking stories that were not given a chance.
Sadly, this is an incredibly common occurrence in the film industry, which doesn’t make it any less devastating when you spend months in pre-production honing an idea that never amounts to anything. This is a plight not unfamiliar to the Coen brothers, who described their dismay at one potential film of theirs that was not given the green light.
Joel Coen described one abandoned film called To The White Sea, a World War II drama that was about to begin principal photography before being entirely scrapped in 2002. Brad Pitt was set to star in the leading role, with the story being adapted from the novel by James Dickey.
When describing this, Coen said, “That one went down the old drainerino. It was really a budget thing at the end of the day,” he adds. Namely, the film required more money than what the studio was willing to put forth. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault, it was just that a certain amount of money was available to make the movie, and certain amount was necessary to actually make it properly, and it came to a point where we had to either radically reconceive how we were going to shoot the movie or move on to something else.”
It is a huge shame when the seeds of an idea are sown but not nurtured, as when Warner Brothers abandons the project but acquires the rights to the novel for a potential adaptation down the line. While the idea of another adaptation has not yet been explored, who knows whether the Coen brothers could reclaim this idea in the future and reunite with Pitt on another story.
