Whoops. Looks like Gerard Butler’s first stab at producing with vigilante thriller Law Abiding Citizen has hit its first road bump. Director Frank Darabont has apparently left the project, citing the usual “creative differences”.

To think it was just last week that Total Film reported that Jamie Foxx was busy negotiating to star in the film alongside Butler, playing a distraught husband and father who goes on a vendetta against the legal team who allowed his family’s killer to escape jail.

According to Ain’t It Cool News (which contacted Darabont to confirm his departure), things ended in an ugly fashion. Not a good result for anyone involved – not Butler, nor even Darabont, who was looking for a new project to give him a boost after The Mist slumped at the box office.

Kurt Wimmer Script

Keen-eyed readers will notice that the plot has changed significantly from the original logline of a criminal mastermind plotting mayhem from jail: wonder if the changes were what made Darabont Depart?

Written by Equilibrium and Ultraviolet scribe/director Kurt Wimmer, Law Abiding Citizen still boasts Butler’s rising star power, but will be spending the next few days hunting down a new director. Our suggestion is anyone but Wimmer. We don’t need another Ultraviolet.