For the last several years, the answer to “What’s Michel Gondry been up to lately?” has been, at least in part, Golden, a film the Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind director was developing and filming with musician Pharrell Williams. Originally titled Atlantis, the coming-of-age story was far enough along last November that it got a glossy preview from Empire, ahead of a planned May 5, 2025 release date. And now it’s never, ever coming out.
This is per Variety, which revealed that the already-shot film has now been scrapped, after “unanimous agreement from producers and Gondry that the film did not live up to its developed conceit.” Universal will reportedly eat $20 million in losses on money already spent on the movie, which Williams had previously said was “a musical expedition, set in the summer of 1977 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with the spirit of the music [of that time].” (Williams also said the film was “a coming-of-age story about self-discovery and pursuing your dreams. But it’s so much more magical than that. It’s a celebration of Black life, Black culture, and most importantly, Black joy.” Golden was many things, until today, when it became a crater on Universal’s balance sheet and an instant “lost classic” for Gondry obsessives, and not much more.)
Williams and Gondry issued a joint statement about the movie’s dissolution today, the kind of thing we’re going to be staring at for a while as we try to determine the subtext that led to this drastic about-face. “When all of us got into the editing room we collectively decided there wasn’t a path forward to tell the version of this story that we originally envisioned,” the statement reads. “We appreciate all the hard work of the talented cast and crew. While we’re disappointed we can’t deliver this film, we have incredible partners at Universal and will collaborate in a different capacity again soon.” Golden was reportedly in early postproduction, meaning that, while at least everyone who worked on the film got paid for what they’d already done, the movie itself will likely never be completed.
Golden would have been the second Williams-fronted film to come out in the past year; his Lego-filmed documentary Piece By Piece arrived in theaters last August. Gondry’s last major American project was his Jim Carrey Showtime series Kidding; he’s released two films in his native France in the last two years, 2023’s The Book Of Solutions and last year’s animated Maya, Give Me A Title.
