Lupita Nyong’o is no longer primed for the starring role in John Woo’s remake of his 1989 action flick, The Killer.
Woo revealed the news over the weekend at the Hawaii International Film Festival.
“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,” he told Deadline.
The director confirmed that the lead will still be a woman. “The biggest reason why I wanted to do this movie again [is] because [I wanted] ‘the killer’ to be a woman–that’s exciting to me. It will make the movie have a different look,” he added.
The project was fast-tracked at Universal, intended as a star vehicle for Nyong’o as the assassin originally portrayed by Chow Yun-fat.
Nyong’o, one of the most in-demand actresses in Hollywood, is currently in post-production on the women-led spy thriller, 355.
Things on her to-do list include Danai Gurira’s HBO Max limited series, Americanah, as well as the adaptation of Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born a Crime.
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Photo: Getty Images
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