It’s been another banner year for Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, who has earned raves and possible awards season love for her role in Us, not to mention praise for her zombie-killing prowess in Little Monsters. But it turns out 2019 will also see be a year in which she had to drop out of two high-profile roles. She couldn’t work out a deal to join James Bond film No Time to Die, and now it looks like her anticipated role in John Woo’s remake of The Killer has fallen through.
Woo revealed the news at the Hawaii International Film Festival (I’m gonna need to attend that one) where he was to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. According to Woo, scheduling conflicts are the cause of Nyong’o dropping out, but he still intends to cast a leading lady for his redo of his violent Hong Kong classic that starred Chow Yun-fat.
“There was a scheduling problem because she’s so popular right now! We rewrote the script and it took so much time…she had to leave for another project. The biggest reason why I wanted to do this movie again because [I wanted] ‘the killer’ to be a woman — that’s exciting to me. It will make the movie have a different look.”
Nyong’o still has the female-led spy flick 355 coming up in January 2021, so we won’t be without seeing her in another kick-ass role. [Deadline]
