Clint Eastwood skips premiere of his film amid claims its being ‘buried’ by studio

Clint Eastwood skipped the premiere of his director work Juror No. 2 starring Nicholas Hoult in the lead role.

Juror No. 2 became Clint’s fourth film to premiere at the AFI festival. However, the 94-year-old Hollywood icon didn’t appear for the premiere, which was attended by cast members Toni Collette and Nicholas Hoult.

Clint’s absence at the premiere comes after Variety reported that the film, which may well be his last directorial effort, is only slated to be released in 50 theaters, with no plans to expand later and no streaming release date announced. The publication also reported that Warner Bros. will likely not report box office grosses on the film and went on to allege that the studio is “burying” the Dirty Harry star’s film.

Meanwhile, at the event, Collette gushed at the honor to work with Clint “as a director, which still blows my mind … but he is a truly good, solid human being. Getting to know him has been incredible.”

Hoult went on to joke that in order to understand the new movie, audiences would first have to see “Juror No. 1.” The duo then recorded a video message for the director, saying, “We love you, Clint!”

In the film, The Great star plays a family man who is assigned jury duty for a case where a man is charged with the murder of his girlfriend. However, the case brings him face-to-face with a horrible accident he had on the same date as the supposed murder.

Alongside Toni Colette and Nicholas Hoult, Juror No. 2 also stars Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Messina, Leslie Bibb, J.K. Simmons and Adrienne C. Moore.