“We cried with laughter”: Ridley Scott confirms the most bizarre rumor about ‘Napoleon’

Suddenly Joaquin Phoenix is the person most hated from Hollywood. And it is not due to the debacle of Joker: Folie à deux. Or not alone. Before he presented it in Venice with Todd Phillips and Lady Gaga and the critical coldness foreshadowed the hard failure that was going to be for Warner Bros.Phoenix had begun to receive bitter reproaches after it was learned that he had ruined the new movie Todd Haynes. He was going to star in it, but decided to abandon a few days after filming began and this caused the project to go under, with numerous jobs lost.

Similar stories emerged shortly after. Phoenix had also abandoned Multiple at the last minute (everything went well there, because James McAvoy quickly joined as a substitute), and had been on the verge of doing the same with his film prior to joker 2, Napoleon. Phoenix played the historical soldier, but he had been on the verge of not doing it when he regretted it 10 days before filming started. Phoenix was not convinced by the script. David Scarpa (which he repeated with Scott in Gladiator IIpremiere this November 15), and the director even stated that he had had to rewrite it based on his incessant notes.

It was later revealed that Phoenix had personally demanded that Paul Thomas Anderson will contribute to the rewriting. That is to say, one of the most reputable filmmakers in Hollywood, who had the trust of Phoenix after having directed him in The Master and pure vice. The thing could have remained a rumor, but Scott has just confirmed it in an interview with the New York Timeswithin the promotion of Gladiator II.