Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro Cancel Cannes Reservations as Che Biopics Miss Deadline
In other Cannes program news from Todd McCarthy's Variety survey this morning, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro's Che Guevara biopic two-fer The Argentine and Guerilla will apparently join Sex and the City among the year's notable omissions. It's a bit of a surprise considering Soderbergh's lightning-fast methodology and Focus Features' high expectations for early awards momentum (the Universal subsidiary is holding the Coens' Burn After Reading until September as well); also, as we hear from McCarthy after the jump, at least one of the films is ready to go:
It seems that the director, who has wanted either both or neither of the films to play the fest, won't be able to finish the four-hour-plus opus by deadline. Evidently, Soderbergh has essentially finished the second film but, despite non-stop work in recent weeks, hasn't quite gotten the first half of the Benicio Del Toro starrer where he wants it.
Hunting for silver linings in our cloudy dismay, we find consolation only in the fact that Del Toro can continue production of The Wolf Man uninterrupted, thus leaving on the cumbersome make-up his character requires straight through the end of shooting next month. We'll always have Indiana Jones 4, we suppose. Sigh.