Jane Got a Gun

After suffering delays, director changes, casting changes, more delays and a studio bankruptcy, Jane Got a Gun is finally coming to theaters. Natalie Portman stars in the new western as a desperate woman who seeks the aid of an old boyfriend to help defend her homestead from the men who previously held her captive. The latest trailer for the film doesn’t do it much favors, between the generic heavy rock music and the generic DTV action flick font — but the actual footage still looks enticing, at the very least.

It’s hard to think of a recent production with worse luck than Jane Got a Gun.

Jane Got a Gun has had a very, very troubled production — from the departure of director Lynn Ramsay to cast changes and release delays, the film started to feel like one long, unfortunate practical joke, and it was unclear if we’d actually ever see this film hit theaters. With the recent collapse of Relativity Media, the uncertainty only grew, but The Weinstein Co. has swept in to save Natalie Portman’s western and given it a 2016 release date…for now.

Over the last several years, Relativity Media has produced and released some of Hollywood’s more adventurous genre films, including Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, the Bradley Cooper brain-drug thriller Limitless, and the music melodrama Beyond the Lights. But they’ve yet to make an out-and-out blockbuster; per Box Office Mojo none of their 34 releases have ever broken $100 million in domestic grosses (2011’s Immortals came closest, with $83.5 million in the U.S.) and some of their flops have been extreme, like Machine Gun Preacher with Gerard Butler, which cost a reported $30 million and made less than $1 million domestically. Amidst mounting disappointments (and millions of dollars in unpaid loans) Relativity filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier today, and will sell its film and television operations at auction.

It’s been quite a bumpy road through the production of ‘Jane Got a Gun,’ the upcoming and consistently-delayed new Western starring Natalie Portman and Joel Edgerton. First, the film lost a director, endured lawsuits, exchanged Michael Fassbender for Ewan McGregor, and pushed its release date back a few times. But today brings our first look at Portman and Edgerton in the film, which is probably a good sign.

When ‘Jane Got a Gun’ finally arrives in theaters, the revisionist Western will look mighty different from the one that was originally conceived several years ago. It was first intended as a Lynne Ramsay film, but the ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ director reportedly quit the production on the first day of filming. She was eventually replaced by Gavin O’Connor (‘Warrior’), but before the dust settled much of the original cast (and even some of their replacements) had come and gone. Michael Fassbender signed on then departed, along with Bradley Cooper and Jude Law. The final lineup includes Ewan McGregor, Joel Edgerton, and Noah Emmerich, plus the film’s stalwart leading lady, Natalie Portman.

Ewan McGregor is in negotiations to join the cast of Gavin O'Connor's 'Jane Got a Gun,' which would (hopefully) put an end to the production's endless troubles. He would be starring with his former 'Star Wars' castmate Natalie Portman.

Michael Fassbender, Jude Law and Bradley Cooper all now have something in common, as Cooper is the third actor to exit from 'Jane Got a Gun,' the troubled Natalie Portman production that had its director replaced.

After all of that trouble at the start of production, it looks like 'Jane Got a Gun' has finally gotten its act together, casting character actor Noah Emmerich in the film's final remaining lead role.

The production of 'Jane Got a Gun' has been under the microscope as its original director Lynne Ramsay left the movie just as shooting was to commence, while Michael Fassbender quit the production shortly before filming was to start and Jude Law dropped out once Ramsay walked off the set. But it looks like everyone who dropped out has been replaced as Bradley Cooper is stepping into Law's part. Re