Blimey. If Albert Hughes’ new thriller Motor City were an actual car, it would be sitting in the repair bay of a dodgy mechanic’s shop with a grease-stained bloke tutting at the engine and talking about how the parts are on back order. We say that because Motor City has been shut down just as it was set to finally start shooting.
The action-thriller, which was to have starred Gerard Butler as a man who gets out of prison burning for revenge against the people who put him there, has not exactly had the easiest road to production. Leading men including Jake Gyllenhaal and Dominic Cooper have come and gone and more recently, Gary Oldman dropped out.
Things seemed to be going smoothly at last with Hughes gearing up to shoot this month, but now the crew has been told to go home after the film’s backers at Emmett / Furla Films, Envision Entertainment and Foresight Entertainment realised that the March release date handed down by Warner Bros and Dark Castle was a drop dead date. With shooting pencilled in to start on September 17, the post-production time would be ridiculously short, which has now led to a chain reaction of problems with other deals, meaning things can’t kick off.
“Faced with the realities of a very short post-production schedule and complicated visual and special effects, the producers have decided to push back production on Albert Hughes’** Motor City**,” said a spokesperson in a statement picked up by Deadline. “The circumstances surrounding this project made it impossible to meet the firm March 31 delivery date without compromising the quality of the film.”
The producers apparently still want to get the movie made, but it appears there will need to be some work done before it can successfully drive out of the garage again.