Goodbye-Fella: De Niro Exits Film

Robert De Niro, looking like his horse is losing the Kentucky Derby.

Variety reports that Robert De Niro has left the cast of Edge of Darkness. The Martin Campbell directed film began shooting in Massachusetts on August 18th. De Niro arrived this week to begin filming his part and left shortly thereafter. Here’s how Variety described De Niro’s role in the film based on a 1985 British miniseries:

De Niro had signed to play an operative sent to clean up the evidence in the murder of a young woman. Mel Gibson stars as the victim’s father, a homicide detective for the Boston Police Dept. who uncovers her secret life, a corporate cover-up and government collusion.

 A spokesman for the actor attributed his departure to “creative differences.”

I love that. “Creative differences” can mean just so gosh darn many things. Did De Niro not like the script anymore? Or the director? Did he and Gibson have a spat? Was Massachusetts getting De Niro down (come on, Bob, stick it out–it gets really pretty in the fall!)? Was it the catering? Did De Niro not like his costumes? Was he asked to wear a bad hairstyle? Did he and Campbell have an argument about the pronunciation of a word? Did choking on a cookie have anything to do with the breakup? I could speculate about this forever. Hopefully the truth will come out, or alas, De Niro and co. will just have to deal with a steady stream of rumors. I’m not saying that as a threat, I’m just saying.

The Edge of Darkness team will film around De Niro’s role (maybe that’s it–if they can film around him, then he wasn’t the biggest fish in the pond, was he? Hmmmm….) until a replacement is found.