Indie Comedy ‘Nailed’ to the Ground

Posted by Paige MacGregor (paige@filmschoolrejects.com) on June 25, 2008

Production of the indie comedy Nailed, starring Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal has been shut down yet again, making this the fourth time the film has been put on hold. According to Variety, the halt was due to financial problems (although I suspect that the real problem lies in the production team’s casting choices…). Variety reported:

Below-the-line crews refused to work Friday. After members of the Intl. Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employees were not paid, IATSE leaders ordered them not to show up at the South Carolina set.

A person familiar with the situation said the production’s expected to resume Monday for the final two days of principal photography, including a key restaurant scene.

IATSE crews also stopped production twice in May after not being paid, then resumed after receiving paychecks. The Screen Actors Guild also ordered its members to stop working on May 9 after film financer Capitol Films failed to deposit enough required money in SAG accounts set up to pay the actors.

“One more shutdown will kill the movie,” a film executive told The Hollywood Reporter this month. The shoot around Columbia, which started in mid-April, was supposed to end Sunday, but it is unclear as to whether or not filming did indeed resume Monday. This fourth setback probably means that we can expect to see Nailed in theaters, assuming it is ever finished, sometime towards the end of 2009, or perhaps even in the early months of 2010.

Nailed is directed by David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees) and co-written by Russell and Kristin Gore (Arctic Tale). According to the film’s IMDb plot summary, Nailed centers on a small town waitress who accidentally ends up with a nail lodged in her head, causing unpredictable behavior that leads her to Washington, D.C., where sparks fly when she meets a clueless young senator who takes up her cause. Even without such a terrible plot and “financial problems,” Nailed is doomed to failure. Need proof? Just take a look at what Jessica Biel did to seasoned actor Nicholas Cage in that box office bomb Next (2007), which was in theaters about as long as Southland Tales and other movies (both good and bad) that you’ve never heard of.

Editor’s Note: FSR is officially mourning the loss of the opportunity to make references to Jessica Biel and the word Nailed without being inappropriate. That loophole in decency will be sorely missed.

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