The two movies Robert De Niro abandoned in the middle of shooting: “It was the worst”
Some people say that quitting is a sign of weakness, but calling Robert De Niro weak for walking away from several projects that he’d initially signed onto is strange, because when you know that something is wrong, sometimes it’s best not to force it, which is what the Hollywood legend recognised when he stepped down from several movies that he no longer wanted to be a part of.
He could’ve kept going, committing to roles that he knew weren’t right for various reasons, but De Niro has been in the business a long time. He knows when it’s best not to force it. So, on several occasions, the actor – who made his film debut back in 1965’s Three Rooms in Manhattan with a tiny uncredited part – has abandoned movies during shooting, forcing the filmmakers to recast him at the last minute.
The first instance of this came back in the 1970s when he was damn-near at the height of his career, having landed a major part in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, which was sandwiched between two great Martin Scorsese collaborations, Mean Streets and Taxi Driver.
De Niro was cast in the comedy Bogart Slept Here, with The Graduate director Mike Nichols helming the project, but once they began shooting, it became very clear that the actor was not right for the role at all, and he instantly felt an overwhelming amount of tension on set, this wasn’t going to work. De Niro doesn’t give up easily – he has stuck with some very questionable projects in the past – but he knew there was absolutely no way that he’d be able to do the movie justice.
Considering that De Niro often chooses to star in some terrible comedies, perhaps he isn’t the best actor to go to when you need someone who truly understands how to use humour on screen. Speaking at the Tribeca Film Festival, De Niro expressed how terrible his short experience of shooting the movie was.
Explaining, “I blame myself. I didn’t know certain things. It was a certain type of comedy – [scriptwriter] Neil Simon – that had the timing that would be a certain way… it just wasn’t working. I shot for about two weeks. It was the worst. You know, I’ve had maybe three times in my life that I’ve ever had that experience with a director.”
It’s a shame that things didn’t work out between De Niro and Nichols, because they’re both incredible, but clearly it just wasn’t meant to be, and the movie soon morphed into The Goodbye Girl, with Richard Dreyfuss taking on the role instead.
Years later, De Niro stepped down from another project, only to be replaced by Ray Winstone. It seems it might have been a more personal issue that served as the reason for his departure this time, because the main star of the film was none other than anti-Semitic Mel Gibson, who had not long been the subject of significant controversy after spouting hate speech.
Edge of Darkness, released in 2010, was Gibson’s first leading role since 2002’s Signs, but his presence on set clearly rubbed De Niro the wrong way. The movie was based on the British television series of the same name, although the movie didn’t do half as well as its source material, flopping at the box office.
Little has been said about De Niro’s decision to drop out of the movie after just one week, but speculation suggests that it was down to personal differences of opinion. A spokesperson for the actor told Variety, “Sometimes things don’t work out. It’s called creative differences.” It sounds like those “creative differences” might have been a little more personal than they’re letting on, but it seems like we’ll never know for certain.
