Henry Cavill drops out of Stratton days before filming was set to begin

By Sam Barsanti | May 31, 2015 | 6:57pm

Aux Features Film

Well, this certainly looks like a pattern: In October, Gal Gadot passed on a leading role in Ben-Hur because it conflicted with her obligations as Wonder Woman, warrior princess of the Amazons (also, she’s playing Wonder Woman in a bunch of movies). Then, earlier this month, Jason Momoa quit The Magnificent Seven because it interfered with his Aquaman-related work. Now, a third member of Batman V. Superman’s Justice League has decided he’s a quitter, as Henry Cavill (Superman himself) has announced that the symbol on his chest stands for “smell ya later” and that he has dropped out of director Simon West’s action-thriller Stratton. Unfortunately for literally everyone else involved in the film’s production, this isn’t a case where they can just replace Cavill and get everything back on track, because filming was supposed to start on Tuesday.

This all comes from Screen Daily, which reports that Cavill—whose production company is involved with the film—wanted to delay production so some kind of changes could be made to the script. Because of some contract things, it came down to either keeping Cavill and doing what he wanted, or letting him go and keeping West and the rest of the crew on board. Screen Daily doesn’t say how long this will set back the filming of Stratton—which is about a British MI5 agent who has to “risk life, limb, and national security to track down an international terrorist cell”—but this seems like a pretty tough blow. It’s not that easy to replace a generically handsome guy with dark hair and an accent.