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A New Rumor About Why Michael Pitt/Jimmy Darmody was written out of the show
publicado por Salt-and-LimesSTAFFMOD el 10 de mayo de 2018 a las 19:36
As many have heard, there are rumors that Michael Pitt was fired from Boardwalk Empire. There were rumors that he was always coming to work late, that he would often arrive high/drunk, he was getting into fights with his co-workers, and forgetting lines. But, I came across something very interesting that I haven't heard.
I heard that the producers of BE wanted to write him out of the show, because Jimmy Darmody was more popular than Steve Buscemi's Nucky Thompson. Since they knew most people preferred to watch Jimmy's storylines instead of Nucky's, Buscemi and the producers were not happy about this. Which is why they decided to write Pitt out to make the lead more interesting. I also heard that Pitt & Buscemi butted heads on set. Pitt supposedly called Buscemi a hack. Buscemi demanded that he should be fired, and the producers agreed.
If this rumor is true, I wonder if Winter & Buscemi's team might have hurt him, underhandedly? It might explain why all of a sudden stories of Pitt being difficult were "leaked from 4chan." And also how the story of his agency "firing" him made it to Deadline.
I think this is possible, because his career has been stunted since he left the show. It does seem that his reputation isn't great within the industry. I really hope he doesn't have powerful enemies.
Contestado por koyumu
el 4 de septiembre de 2018 a las 23:58
It could make sense. Thank you for the post, I didn't know about this and I've always wonder why the production decided to make him unexpectedly die at the season two finale? He was one of the main character and the stories around him were the most exciting (in my opinion).
So why the producers wanted to write him out as he was very popular among the BE'fans? Anyway I think they did very well in the seasons 3-5 without Jimmy Darmody and the plot got more and more interesting with the new characters.
About the rumor: "[Pitt was] late a lot (this costs production money), [he had] trouble remembering lines (they had to reshoot an entire scene because he couldn’t remember his lines…this costs production money), [was] constantly questioning his character’s storyline, tried to change dialogue a lot, would wander from the set, got into a little fist fight with William Forsythe during the Jimmy death scene, etc. They had plans for him and Angela’s character but they pretty much just got tired of him."
Contestado por Salt-and-Limes
el 7 de septiembre de 2018 a las 01:48
It's a mystery. Clearly, this was not their original plan. We could even tell from the writing in the subsequent seasons (Winter admitted he started from the drawing board after season 2). This was also not a very smart plan, either. I respect that you felt the newer seasons were better, but most people did not feel that way. Darmody took over 1/2 million viewers with him when he left. The ratings kept dropping season after season. Eventually, BE had to throw in the towel.
So the real question is why did they get rid of him when they didn't have a solid backup plan? Why would they shoot themselves in the foot when the production cost HBO a fortune?
I think that there had to have been bad blood between Pitt and the producers. Whether or not Buscemi had anything to do with it...I don't really know. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. He kind of rubs me the wrong way. But...was Buscemi the one who had the most to gain?
Contestado por Jessica
el 7 de septiembre de 2018 a las 11:37
I liked his character on BE and was really surprised when he was killed off. I thought the show was well done after he left as well though. He was also replaced in the Hannibal series, which I thought added to the notion that he's just difficult to work with.