Well to be fair it hadn't really started, but the story has come out that the Anthony Hopkins lead film version of King Lear seems to have been cancelled and will be no more, despite the additional cast of Keira Knightley, Gwyneth Paltrow and Naomi Watts who would be playing his daughters.

I find it hard to believe that this film has fallen through, and the inference that this is down to the recession is a joke. Next they'll be blaming the Banks for the film failing. How can this film fail and we hear of remakes of NeverEnding Story, Total Recall and Arthur all in the same day?

It's not just uninspired remakes that are getting made over this superb casting of King Lear, but a rival King Lear film starring Al Pacino is still going ahead, now how can one be down to the recession and the other not?

According to news story in The Daily Telegraph through Digital Spy (who once again do not provide any link to their source story, but I've dug it out) it seems that Ruby Films are no longer making the film and try to claw back a little by pointing out that the film hadn't even been announced, despite us all knowing about it in June.

What does strike me as odd is if this was a recession issue surely they would try to reduce the budget, and one way would be to pair back the cast, after all those four names are really sucking dry the budget for salaries. If it were down to the recession wouldn't they just recast some of the major roles, especially since they hadn't even announced the film.

It just seems a little reactionary and unlike most productions. “Damn, we can't get the most expensive actresses on the market, let's scrap the whole film idea”. I don't think so.

Forget the recession reasoning, there's some other reason this hasn't worked out, after all the important bit is the lead of Anthony Hopkins and King Lear, they could still have taken that forward, surely that would have been a better bet than an Al Pacino version.