Christian Bale Bails On New Ridley Scott Movie, ‘Child 44’


Christian Bale bails out on Ridley Scott’s new movie, Child 44, passing up an offer to star in the movie about Soviet police investigating a series of brutal child murders.

As TheWrap reported, news that Christian Bale bails on the film came from a person close to the production. Bale reportedly met with the filmmakers on Tuesday to let them know he wasn’t on board with the project.

Bale would have played a lawyer investigating nbe the serial killings of children in the Soviet Union during the 1950s. Child 44 is based on a book of the same name by British novelist Tom Rob Smith, and Richard Price wrote the script to make it into a movie. It is being produced by Ridley Scott.

The book is based on the real-life killing of 52 children by Ukrainian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. Christian Bale would have played Leo Demidov, the lawyer assigned to investigate the murders.

The movie itself is a long time coming, having sat in production since 2007, Empire Online reported. The book was optioned in 2007, before it was even released the following year. It was originally intended as a Ridley Scott project, but after he was too busy to direct the studio moved on to Daniel Espinosa, who also directed the Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington thriller Safe House.

As Christian Bale bails on Child 44, it also appears he’s shut the door on two subsequent movies planned. Child 44 is part of a trilogy looking at the impact of Stalin in Soviet Russia.

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