Netflix cancels Halle Berry’s sci-fi mystery The Mothership before it has even aired

The Mothership
(Image credit: Netflix)

It looks like the image above is the only frame you'll see of the Halle Berry sci-fi movie The Mothership. While filming wrapped some time ago back in 2021, the movie is no longer coming to the best streaming service

According to Variety, Netflix has decided to cancel the movie "after multiple delays in post-production" prevented its completion. PEOPLE magazine adds that one of the problems was that it required reshoots, and those reshoots needed to bring back child actors who have grown visibly older since their scenes were originally shot.

This isn't the first movie in recent years to be canned after filming was completed. Warner Bros. has wielded the ax against the $90 million Batgirl movie, the amazing-looking John Cena comedy Coyote vs. Acme, and the Scooby-Doo movie Scoob! Holiday Haunt

Halle Berry is still making movies for Netflix

PEOPLE has checked with Berry's, er, people to confirm that the star is still working with Netflix on other previously announced projects including The Union, formerly known as Our Man From New Jersey, in which she stars alongside Mark Wahlberg in a "high stakes US Intelligence mission". The film is part of an ongoing partnership that began with Berry's directorial debut Bruised, a sports drama about a disgraced MMA fighter reconnecting with her son and reclaiming her mojo.

It does seem like this particular cancellation was due to circumstances beyond anybody's control. There's not a lot you can do about child stars growing up unless you want to run the risk of falling into the uncanny valley with digital de-aging, a process that still costs a fortune – studio execs reportedly spent $100 million digitally de-aging Harrison Ford for Indiana Jones 5 to mixed reviews – and produces imperfect results. But it perhaps says a lot about the state of the streaming movie industry that our reaction to the news wasn't just "oh no!" but "oh no! Not another one!". 

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Carrie Marshall
Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.

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