William Hurt, the star of Midnight Rider, has decided to leave the controversial production, which has been infinitely delayed after the death of camera assistant Sarah Jones in February.
Hurt was slated to play Gregg Allman, one of the founding members of the Allman Brothers Band. Production on the project stopped in February after Jones died in a train accident on Feb. 20 in Georgia.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, director Randall Miller had hoped to start production again in June in Los Angeles, but Hurt’s departure puts the entire production in a tough spot.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Jones’ friends and colleagues took to Facebook to call for a boycott of the production and critics said that the accident showed the need for more safety oversight on film sets. Hurt himself expressed safety concerns in an email the Times obtained in March.
“I said, 'Sixty seconds is not enough time to get us off this bridge.' There was a communal pause. No one backed me up. Then, we ..... Just went ahead. I took off my shoes, got on the heavy, metal hospital bed and began preparing,” Hurt wrote. He added that when the train came, “We didn't have sixty seconds. We had less than thirty.”
Miller was producing the film with his wife, Jody Savin, under their production company Unclaimed Freight Productions. They have yet to comment since Hurt’s decision.