“The Mothership,” a sci-fi film starring Halle Berry, is the latest victim of the current trend of studios canceling films that have already finished filming.
This was supposed to be a highlight for Netflix and Halle Berry, but it will ultimately be a downtime. The Mothership, Halle Berry’s upcoming sci-fi film, is the latest casualty of the streaming wars.
Although filming wrapped in 2021, Netflix will not release the film. The info was revealed by the always well-informed Jeff Sneider. Netflix is ending production on the film due to a number of post-production delays. It will now be considered a total loss for tax purposes.
The reason ? Tax deductions
The Mothership is therefore the latest film to suffer this fate. As a reminder, tax deductions for completed projects have become more common in recent years.
Warner Bros. shocked the film industry in 2022 when it announced that its nearly completed Batgirl film, which was to star Leslie Grace, Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton returning as Batman, would be wiped from the production schedule by measure cost reduction.
This same cost-saving measure also caused the animated film Scoob: Holiday Haunt to disappear. Another Warner Bros. film, the animated-live-action hybrid comedy Coyote vs. Acme, was also reported to be losing production last year.
However, the latter may have a chance, as the studio has changed course and is reportedly in the process of selling the film to other studios.
What was The Mothership supposed to look like?
In The Mothership, Halle Berry plays Sara Morse, a woman whose husband mysteriously disappears from their farm. A year later, she and her children discover a strange and seemingly extraterrestrial object under their house, which leads them on a perilous quest to find their missing husband and father.
The Mothership was written and directed by Bridge of Spies screenwriter Matt Charman; it was his directorial debut. In addition to Halle Berry, the film was also to star Molly Parker (Deadwood), Omari Hardwick (Army of the Dead), Sydney Lemmon (Tár), John Ortiz (Fast & Furious) and Paul Guilfoyle (CSI).
You can get a very brief preview of the film in the video above which previews the Netflix feature film line-up for 2022.
Halle Berry signed a multi-film deal with Netflix in 2021. The broadcaster released her first directorial debut that year, the drama Murder, in which she plays the lead role. She is next expected to appear in Our Man From Jersey. She will play a woman who drags her high school boyfriend, a construction worker (Mark Wahlberg), into the dark world of espionage. She is also set to star alongside Angelina Jolie in the thriller Maude v Maude for Warner Bros.