April 04, 2015
A Lifetime movie starring comedy heavyweights Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig could be no more.
After news of the former Saturday Night Live cast members' upcoming release entitled "A Deadly Adoption" was leaked last week, Ferrell said that he and Wiig would forego the project entirely. Entertainment Weekly has the synopsis of what the film, which was set to come out this summer, is all about:
The idea was to release a quasi-parody of the soapy thrillers Lifetime is so well known for. Part of Lifetime’s 25th anniversary celebration of its movie franchise, the project was called a “high-stakes dramatic thriller” about husband (Ferrell) and wife (Wiig) who take in and care for a woman (Jessica Lowndes) in the final months of her pregnancy with the aim of adopting the baby, only to have the situation spiral dangerously out of control.
Obviously, it's hard to imagine that two stars in their primes would star in a cable movie without approaching the project with some sense of irony. In case you're not familiar, Lifetime movies are known for their formulaic, over-the-top dramatic stylings and usually go something like this:
Now, thanks to the leak, we may be deprived of watching these two work their magic in one of these movies:
However, the two might not have a say in the matter. A report from Yahoo notes that often times actors don't pull that much weight when it comes to killing a film, no matter how big their profiles are:
Ferrell's statement may be an empty threat: Stars generally don't have the ability to kill an already-filmed project, except in the unusual circumstance where they fully financed the production, said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment attorney for the Hollywood firm TroyGould. Even then, they could face a breach of contract lawsuit if the film had already been leased to a television network.
A similar incident occurred in 2014 when the script for Quentin Tarantino's upcoming film "The Hateful Eight" was leaked, and Tarantino considered shelving the project altogether. However, the writer and director eventually picked the project back up and has started shooting.
