Since late last week, word of Tony Jaa's financial, professional and personal problems have been sweeping the internubs like one big giant wave of speculation. But now WiseKwai and the folks at the TonyJaa.org message boards have started translating articles from the local press and passing on more and more news of Jaa's supposed meltdown and things don't look pretty.

To make a long story short, Tony Jaa seems to have abandoned his directorial debut, ONG BAK 2, with the film about 70% or 80% completed. Sahamongkol Films, the producers, say they haven't heard from Jaa in a month at least and they've brought in Prachya Pinkaew, director of CHOCOLATE and ONG BAK, to finish the movie. Panna Rittikrai, the action choreographer and Jaa's mentor, has tried to locate Jaa but he can't seem to find him, either. This is especially dire since ONG BAK 2 has already been presold to some territories based on a pretty stunt-a-riffic promo reel that screened at this year's Cannes market. Sahamongkol claims they've had to return the money paid for the Japanese presale. They've brought in Prachya because they're hoping to make a December 5 release date for the highly anticipated film.

ONG BAK 2 has had a troubled production history from the very beginning. The deal was originally inked when Jaa was fresh off TOM YUM GOONG and he wanted a lot of control over the project, which resulted in a falling out between himself and Prachya Pinkaew (who went off to direct CHOCOLATE) with Jaa assuming the directorial duties. Then the Weinstein Company bought worldwide rights to the film in March 2006, before handing those rights back in May, 2007. Production started earlier this year, with Jaa's production company, Iyara Film Company, taking charge but as the shoot ground on, and on, and on things began to look bad. Jaa vanished about three months ago (although there are conflicting reports with some at Sahamongkol saying he requested time off to recover from stress) and Sahamongkol's head honcho, Sia Jiang, is now begging him to come back and finish the film. Word is that the budget has almost tripled under Iyara's management and while Sahamongkol has been shoveling hundreds of millions of baht into the ONG BAK 2 inferno, Jaa has been going to the press stating that he's lost his personal fortune while covering costs on the film because Sahamongkol has been slow to pay.

Whatever the truth of the matter is, everyone's a loser here. Jaa needs a new movie to come out to solidify his place in the international film scene, Sahamongkol needs the movie because they've invested a zillion baht already, the Thai film industry needs this film to make good on its financial commitments to its crew and service providers or it'll leave them holding the bag, owed tons of money with no hope of being paid back, and fans need this movie because - judging from the promo reel - it looks awesome.