Denzel Washington is Done Solving Train Problems

Published by Jeff Leins on: July 14th, 2009

Denzel Washington has backed out of Unstoppable, the second train movie in a row directed by Tony Scott.  The two worked together on the ho-hum remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, but the Oscar-winning actor is tired of waiting.

The ironically-titled movie was put on hold by Fox last month while they discussed potential budget issues for such an action-heavy production.  One of the main concerns was the $20 million price tag that comes with Washington, who never officially signed a deal after three months sitting at the station.

Meanwhile, the studio is looking at the last Washington-Scott collaboration and seeing this as a possible dud in the making.  The budget on Pelham was a reported $100 million at Sony and the mediocre movie has struggled to only $60 million domestic after a full summer month in theaters.  Currently the budget for Unstoppable is roughly the same $100 million at Fox, who asked both Scott and Washington to shave $3M and $4M off their salary (respectively).  Washington declined and walked.

The exit of the main actor is certainly cause for concern to the other attached actor, Chris Pine, who wanted to quickly follow his break-out role in Star Trek.  The two stars were supposed to hop on an unmanned runaway train carrying toxic chemicals this fall.