Javier Bardem has left Money Never Sleeps, the upcoming sequel to Wall Street directed by Oliver Stone. Filming was scheduled to start in August for a release in February 2010.
Bardem’s publicist told Forbes the Oscar-winning actor has turned down the role because he has “five or six other offers.” Instead, one of those offers means he’ll appear in Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts about a woman’s globe-trotting discovery of herself. No replacement has been announced yet for Bardem’s character.
He joined the production in June 2009 as a hedge fund manager suspected of murder and other shady business practices. Michael Douglas will still reprise his role as Gordon Gekko, which won him an Oscar for the 1987 original, and Shia LaBeouf is a young broker investigating the hedge fund and dating Gekko’s daughter. Gordon Gekko finishes a prison sentence and returns to the changed financial world in the film. Of course the sequel will reflect the current market and recent corporate criminals like Bernard Madoff.
source: newsinfilm..com