The Empire

Adèle Haenel had originally been slated to play the lead but pulled out after clashing with Bruno Dumont about the script. She said she first thought it would be great fun — a sort of Luke Skywalker in space — but discovered that beneath the comic surface the film defended a dark, sexist and racist worldview. The screenplay, she argued, was riddled with jokes about cancel culture and sexual violence; she tried to raise these concerns with Dumont, believing a conversation was possible and repeatedly giving him the benefit of the doubt, but came to see the choices as intentional. In her view the project deliberately mocked victims and those in vulnerable positions and aimed to make a sci‑fi film with an all‑white cast, which she would not support. She later retired from the French film industry in 2023.