What was the real reason behind Labeouf's exit from Don't Worry Darling?

Olivia Wilde is getting most of her negative attention from people on the center right to the right who don't like her bizarre and incorrect crack at Jordan Peterson.

I was on vacation when the story about Shia Labeouf being replaced on her the movie came out; so, I didn't say much about it at the time. I do think that the situation with Shia Labeouf says a lot more negative stuff about Olivia Wilde than her simply voicing an odd opinion about a public figure.

I've worked in movies for years. I've read about movies for years. It's not that uncommon for somebody who is very high up on the production to get fired. I remember reading the American Cinematographer article on Collateral eighteen years ago when, about a quarter of the way through the piece, there was a line line, "Paul Cameron left the film due to creative differences and was replaced by Dion Beebe." Of course, knowing what Michael Mann is like as a director and given that they were breaking new ground in digital cinematography, everything about the "creative differences" line tells us that Michael Mann got frustrated with Paul Cameron about something more than a couple of squabbles about the look of the film. Really, you don't go into production on a movie like that if the director and cinematographer are still figuring out how the movie is gonna look.

Still, that's been the mode of operation when somebody gets fired on set. The inner circles of Hollywood will be passively aware of what happened. I'm willing to bet that most of the people reading this didn't know that Paul Cameron was fired off of Collateral in the middle of production. You don't talk to the press about why this person left the project unless you have to. Once you do have to, unless it's something really egregious like safety problems or sexual misconduct, you just stick with, "creative differences" and move on.

Now, the replacement of a major cast member is really rare, particularly if the movie is already in production. Even if the director gets fired, the production can move forward with much of what they already have. An actor leaving half way through production means a lot of expensive reshoots. Also, an actor leaving a film is more likely to bring press attention. Still, I think the same standards apply.

It's hard to deny that Shia Labeouf's departure from Don't Worry Darling was nowhere near the story of Kevin Spacey being replaced on All the Money in the World. I hadn't heard about it until a couple of weeks ago and it could have been a story for a while. If Olivia Wilde had just said, "creative differences", she would have been in line with appropriate behavior.

Only, she decided to say that she fired Shia Labeouf and specifically said that she needed to "protect" her cast from Labeouf, and that he wasn't safe nor trustworthy.

Of course, Labeouf defended himself and said that he quit the film. The difference is that Labeouf produced evidence that Wilde was essentially begging him to stay on the movie.

I know that the saying, "All publicity is good publicity." exists; but, there's gotta be a limit. Imagine if Robert Downey Jr. was starting his comeback after rehabbing and sobering up and he left the project for whatever reason, and the director just lied and said that Robert Downey Jr was fired because he was doing drugs again.

Shia Labeouf already created a similar reputation to early Robert Downey Jr for himself. There's been a lot of buzz through the years of odd behavior, including him pulling his own tooth out for Fury, and substance abuse problems. His career had already dipped from starring in multi-million-dollar blockbusters to working with Lars von Tier. If it's true that he's been sober and reliably attending rehab, it makes it all the worse that Wilde would prevaricate like this. It shows a willingness to do real damage to a person's career just to get some attention for your movie. It also shows that Hollywood is stooping even lower than it has been. It's hard to believe that that's true.