Dashing hopes of a reunion after 2018’s High Life, Robert Pattinson is exiting Claire Denis’s upcoming political thriller, The Stars at Noon, with Taron Egerton stepping into his role. Screen Daily first reported the news, noting that distributor Wild Bunch was promoting the new casting to buyers at Cannes. Pattinson reportedly bowed out of the film due to other working commitments, since The Stars at Noon’s shoot has been delayed over a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic; it’s now set to begin in October. Perhaps duty called for The Batman, which Pattinson is starring in and was delayed last fall after the actor tested positive for COVID-19 on set. The Stars at Noon, meanwhile, is an adaptation of a 1986 novel by Denis Johnson about a British oil executive (Egerton) who meets an American reporter (played by Margaret Qualley) in Nicaragua during the country’s American-involved civil war in the 1980s.
