Let’s make this a two-post day: Mooseturds on Twitter has just tweeted the link to an article by writer and director Mark Murphy. He writes about getting one of his stories onto the screen. But his piece starts with the story of how one of his projects *nearly* got made – and then was cancelled literally at the last minute. We are talking about Mid-Life Crisis – a film about a group of middle-aged men who revive their teenage rock band – in which Richard had been cast as one of the main characters. And the insight we get hurts me to the bottom of my heart.
With a heavy heart and on one of the worst days of my life, I had to announce to cast and crew that the plug had been pulled. As I listened to original songs written and performed by Gary Barlow, and an amazing rendition of Richard Armitage performing Radio Ga Ga, on my computer – sadly never to be heard by the public – I was reminded of the nefarious producer of those few years ago.
Read the whole article HERE.
All we hear is – radio ga-ga? Richard performing for Liza Frank’s photo project My Celebrity Boyfriend
What a crying shame! When the project was announced, I think there was a collective sigh in the fandom. The thought of Richard playing a musician – and actually singing (and dancing?!) was a dream come true. Especially as the lovely man had so often said he wasn’t going to sing and dance publicly ever again. What’s more, the film sounded like some lighter entertainment – neither action nor the dark material that Richard had become almost synonymous for. Oh, I would have loved to see this – and I know that most of you would’ve too. And Richard seemed to be into it, too. Remember this:
Yep, thorough as he is, he had already started preparing and was practicing on a guitar. Double sigh.
What a shame. May those fraudulent producers rot in hell. The world would’ve been a better place with Richard singing Radio Ga-Ga and strutting his stuff on the stage. And boy, does he like the guitars…
Now that it is out in the open – Richard, please, do look for another project like this again. Please! A guitar would look really look good on you.
Guylty Pleasure 
This breaks my heart. I would have loved to see and hear this. Would that I could win the lottery and go back to. Murphy and say “Let’s do it!”
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Same here. I am just doubtful that once something is off the table, it is gone for good.
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So he was ‘scammed’ unbelievable but I suppose its true, it’s a pity someone couldn’t get on board to save the film, it could have been the making of RA’s production company.lol
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There is a great idea, especially as he was already on board with the project.
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Maybe after that article some benefactor will say let’s do it.
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That would be the ideal solution. The project sounded funny – and it had really great names attached to it.
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🙂
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Can he release the song as a single?
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Is “a single” still a thing?
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I’d buy it if it did… but I am sure there are rights-issues.
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If I was very disappointed before at the cancellation of the movie, I’m even more so now reading what we’ve missed out on. 🙁 I’ve read the article but don’t understand why the project couldn’t go ahead with funding from somewhere else. It seems to be Mark Murphy’s idea to do with it what he wants. It would be great if it was Richard’s production company that took it on.
PS many thanks to Mooseturds for finding the article, we were left wondering and now we know!
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It almost makes it worse, doesn’t it? I mean, we knew that there was a project – but until now we didn’t know how close it came to filming. And that is what hurts so much about this…
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Oh this pisses me off. Totally. Meh!
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The ‘what if’ is so much worse than not knowing at all…
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I’m so sad about this! But it’s just further proof that no matter how hard an actor does “push himself forward,” even one of Richard’s status, factors beyond their control can stall or even derail their career. Lord knows how many other projects wind up like this (from what I’ve seen from my worklife, it’s a LOT). I wish his success was solely up to him but show business is a business at its core. One does wonder if maybe RA’s new company would be able to take over the project, assuming there aren’t legal/financial obligations entangling the rights. He’s probably learned a lot about indie financing from Julie Delpy! And now that he’s in so good with Netflix, who knows? All the more reason for us to continue watching Castlevania and to devour The Stranger when it comes out. Netflix has money and we want RA to have money!
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It’s something that I had no idea about until I started following Richard’s career – the number of projects that are announced and then never actually see the light of day, is higher than we think. And it again proves that it is such a fickle business to be in. No wonder that Rich may have occasionally taken on a job – less for the artistry and more for the security.
And I am totally in agreement when it comes to Netflix. He is very lucky that he has gone into partnership with Netflix. I am sure it is beneficial to have his name out there – possibly at a later stage for his production company, too. Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube Studios etc – these are currently the big spenders.
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And I just saw this article on Variety (not sure if the link will work), about the HUGE amounts of money that Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot will be receiving for their upcoming Netflix film. Johnson will be receiving even more because he’s the producer. I’m tellin’ ya, folks, no matter how one feels about Netflix, we want RA to do really, really well with them.
https://variety.com/2019/film/news/red-notice-dwayne-johnson-gal-gadot-ryan-reynolds-netflix-1203262879/#article-comments
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This is really interesting. And you are absolutely right – I want RA to be a big name with Netflix. It’ll mean a lot more than Hollywood these days. In fact, Netflix’s reach is probably wider than Hollywood. I am, also thinking that it would be cool if RA could not just act but also get in there as a producer…
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Such an interesting article. It never occurred to me how few movies ever get made or get shown or distributed widely until I started following RA’s work.
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🙂
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Same here, Sue, I thought it was all straight-forward. Apparently not.
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I’m wishing for that Radio Ga Ga thing to be leaked somehow… 😉 Yes, I too was excited about this project and bummed when it fell through. How angering that a rip off was the reason.
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Good point. Mark Murphy should just inadvertently leak it. Sorry, apologies, shouldn’t have happened… ahem… 😉
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That’s really, really sad! As all of you stated before, I would have loved to watch this
And it proofs another of my crushes right who said some time ago something like: ‘It is really hard to get a movie that isn’t a blockbuster financed nowadays. I am amazed that movies are being made at all….’
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