River Phoenix’s Family Will Have 'Nothing to Do' with His Last Film - East Idaho News
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River Phoenix’s Family Will Have ‘Nothing to Do’ with His Last Film

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87129364?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1344035398932George Rose/Getty Images(UTRECHT, Netherlands) — The final film of the late heartthrob River Phoenix may finally premiere, 19 years after his death, but don’t count on Phoenix’s famous family to be a part of it.

“The Phoenix family will have absolutely nothing to do with this,” a representative for Phoenix’s brother, Joaquin Phoenix, said to ABC News in an email.

Dutch director George Sluizer has reportedly finished the film, Dark Blood, which Phoenix was working on when he died suddenly of a heart attack on Halloween 1993 outside the Viper Room, a Hollywood club.

Following Phoenix’s death, Sluizer, 80, locked the footage away in the Netherlands so it couldn’t be lost or tampered with, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The director has since received postproduction and editing financing and plans to present a final cut at the Netherlands Film Festival, in Utrecht in September.

In the film, Phoenix plays Boy, a hermit who lives in the desert on a nuclear testing site, waiting for the end of the world. When a famous Hollywood couple, played by Judy Davis and Jonathan Pryce, lands in the desert, Boy holds them hostage as he begins a relationship with the woman.

Before his death at age 23, Phoenix was known for his roles in major Hollywood films such as Stand By Me, Sneakers and The Mosquito Coast. His role in Running on Empty landed him Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations.

Sluizer is known for his films Spoorloos and The Vanishing.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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