John Boyega Just Walked Out Of His New Netflix Movie
John Boyega has just left the production of his new Netflix movie. It was more than a month into filming when he left on Thursday.
This article is more than 2 years old
John Boyega dealt production on his latest movie a blow in what could be a tough situation for the actor and those close to him. According to Deadline, the actor abruptly left the filming of Netflix’s Rebel Ridge. He cited “family reasons” as what precipitated him walking away from the production and we hope all is well with both the actor and those in his family. It’s a possibly odd situation and now has Netflix looking for a replacement so they can finish the movie.
Rebel Ridge was already a month into filming when John Boyega announced he was leaving. The intention with the announcement wasn’t to delay until he returned but rather to signal that he was done with the movie to deal with the family situation that arose. There’s likely to be more news in the coming days about this situation considering actors or actresses walking away from a film mid-shoot is extremely rare. Especially with the film’s lead, this kind of thing almost never happens.
According to the Deadline reporting, the production only paused to find a replacement for John Boyega, and apparently, they felt confident this would happen within a few days at most. They may have someone else in mind or this could be a situation in which those in the production may have seen this coming and had been already working on a contingency plan. The latter would make sense if the family situation for Boyega was an ongoing one.
Rebel Ridge is filming in Louisiana and has been since May 3rd of this year. Originally, the plan had been to begin production in April 2020, but at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic that was pushed back more than a year because of rules and regulations that made major productions nearly impossible to get underway. John Boyega had been one of the first folks cast for the film all the way back in 2019.
John Boyega leaves the film which has very few plot details released right now. Jeremy Saulnier is at the helm and wrote the script. If his other films Green Room and Hold the Dark are any indication, there could definitely be a horror vibe in here with plenty of intense action. It’s unclear if they will have to recast the star in the film in Boyega, though considering he was the first to come on board, there are likely big shoes to fill. Joining John Boyega in the cast, prior to his leaving are Don Johnson, The Crown’s Erin Doherty, and James Badge Dale.
What the future holds for John Boyega now isn’t totally clear. There’s some chance this was just a family emergency and will sort itself before his next movie. The next one coming is They Cloned Tyrone which is also coming to Netflix sometime this year. It’s in post-production, having finished filming last year. But after that it’s less certain. He is slated to star in Borderland and it was just announced that he’d be making a sequel to Attack the Block, the movies that helped launch his career. That’s set for a 2022 release. We hope that all is well with John Boyega’s family and that he’s able to get back to work soon.
