Witherspoon pulls out of 'Bunny' project

LOS ANGELES, March 9 (UPI) -- Reese Witherspoon pulled out of "Bunny Lake is Missing," in which she was both a star and a producer, halting the Los Angeles production indefinitely.

Witherspoon, undergoing a divorce from actor Ryan Phillippe, told filmmakers that she did not feel emotionally invested in the role, sources on the production told the Los Angeles Times.

Joe Carnahan was on board to direct the remake of the 1965 Otto Preminger film about an American woman whose daughter goes missing from a new nursery school in England. She is then confronted by police who suggest her daughter never existed.

To accommodate the actress' desire to be close to her family, producers said they planned to shoot for two weeks in England with the balance of the production to be filmed in Los Angeles.

Scripts have been sent to other actresses, but producers said they were unsure whether the movie could be recast on such short notice. Carnahan is scheduled to begin shooting another project in July.