ROBERT DE NIRO QUITS MEL GIBSON FILM

    Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro has abruptly left the cast of Edge of Darkness, a day before he was due to shoot his first scenes with Mel Gibson.
    De Niro, 65, arrived on the Boston set only last week to play a shady government operative trying to clean up evidence in the murder of a young woman activist.
    “Sometimes things don’t work out,” a spokesman for De Niro said. “It’s called creative differences.”
    In the film, based on a 1985 BBC series of the same name, Gibson, 42, plays a murder detective who is the father of the murdered girl, and who uncovers her secret life and the attempted government cover-up.
    It is Gibson’s first appearance in front of the camera since The Singing Detective in 2003.
    The film is directed by Martin Campbell, who made the BBC series and directed two actors in their debuts as James Bond, Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.
    The screenplay was co-written by Irish-American writer William Monahan, who won an Oscar for writing the 2006 film The Departed.
    The film makers now plan to shoot around De Niro’s scenes until they find a replacement.