Cardi B has pulled out of her starring role in Assisted Living, causing Paramount Players to pull the plug on the $30 million comedy film, Deadline reports. According to the outlet, the Bronx native stepped away from the film just a week before it was slated to start production in New York.
The film has now been at least temporarily scratched, Deadline adds, with the project’s cast and crew recently receiving the news.
Cardi was cast to portray Amber, “a small-time crook who finds herself in over her head when a heist goes wrong,” the film synopsis reads. “On the run from the cops and her former crew,” she “has to stay free long enough to prove her innocence and holes up at her grandmother’s retirement home,” where she fits in by changing her appearance with “old-lady prosthetics.”
Cardi reportedly cited being “overextended” as her reason for pulling out of the feature film. Deadline notes that when an actor in a starring role drops a film this late in the process, legal action is often pursued. However, sources told the outlet that producers are hoping to work things out with the rapper in order to avoid that later this year.
Paramount Pictures won a high-stakes bidding war for the film — reportedly between a six- and seven-figure deal — in 2019. Assisted Living — which was described as a “raucous comedy” with “tremendous heart” and similar to Tootsie, Sister Act and Mrs. Doubtfire — was penned by Kay Oyegunin and would have been directed by Thembi Banks.
Assisted Living would have also marked another feature film for Cardi, who previously starred in Hustlers and Fast & Furious 9. Cardi also executive produced and served as a judge on Netflix’s unscripted competition series “Rhythm + Flow” alongside Chance the Rapper and T.I.