River Phoenix’s Final Film Eyed For Release After 18 Years.

Fans of dearly-departed heartthrob River Phoenix will finally be able to see his last unfinished film Dark Blood after 18 years in the can.




River was 23 when he died of a drug overdose outside Johnny Depp’s Los Angeles nightclub The Viper Room in 1993. At the time, he only had a few weeks left of filming on Dutch director George Sluzier’s drama about a Hollywood jet-setting couple (Judy Davis and Jonathan Pryce), who arrive to find shelter at a hermit’s desert abode on a nuclear testing site “as he waits for the end of the world.” (Yeah — it’s a mouthful.) Sluizer gave up on the production after Phoenix’s death and hid the footage in fear of it being destroyed.
Now, 18 years later, he’s tells The Hollywood Reporter that he’s re-edited the sought-after material to release a final cut of the film in 2012, and he wants to enlist River’s younger brother, fellow Oscar nominee and sometime fake rapper Joaquin Phoenix, to provide a voice-over to fill in for Phoenix’s unfilmed scenes. (Although Legal issues surrounding the film might see a change in its title.