The annoying and cruel teenage illness mononucleosis claims another victim in Dennis Hopper’s son Henry Lee Hopper who is having to step down from his feature film debut in the Wes Craven horror/thriller 26/8. The good people over at yahoo.com give us more on the story:
There were no creative differences between Craven and Dennis Hopper’s son, who was set to make his screen debut as one of seven teens haunted by a killer who supposedly died when they were born. The 17-year-old actor contracted an illness common to fellow teens: mononucleosis.
“Wes said he was thinking about pushing the film back but couldn’t because of the possible actors strike,” said Hopper.
Hopper went on the say that his replacement, Max Thierot (Jumper)(in photo) is a talented actor who will fill all of the needs of the film. According to imdb.com the movie is about A serial killer returns to his hometown to stalk seven children who share the same birthday as the date he was allegedly put to rest. Also staring in 28/5 are Nick Lashaway, John Magaro, Paulina Olszynski, Shareeka Epps and Emily Meade.
Mono is a nasty ruiner of many a teenage dreams, proms dreams have been destroyed, kissing outlawed between puppy lovers, and weight lost by already twig like nerds. I slept through most of my second semester of 7th grade with mono. Some people may be thinking that maybe Hopper is backing out for different reasons, perhaps his manager has decided that a horror/thriller is not the best flick for his debut? But mono is highly contagious and that is probably a liability for the studios.