Recast "Gone Girl" if it was made today

I definitely don't think Seyfried is too old. What about Meghann Fahy as Amy?

Um, the movie isn't even 10 years old and a lot of the cast aren't that old or relevant especially Ben Affleck. I known this is for fun, but let's not pretend this a 2000s, 90s, or earlier flick. 

I should've worded it another way. Seyfried has a few years over all of my other picks, but that shouldn't matter anyhow. 

I don't see Fahy as being quite commanding enough for the part, but interesting to think about what she could do. 

She really does look like Cheryl Tiegs in particular.A little Michelle Pffeifer too.

No, I don't have that problem with any actor, but I'd say Glenn Close and Fatal Attraction might have had a similar impact on general moviegoing audiences in the 80s? Pike and her performance were compared to Close at the time the film opened, I remember.

 As someone who read the book, I think Pike was perfectly cast. 

As someone who also read the book and thought that the entire crux of the film's reveal was ruined because Pike was playing it so overtly from the start (and Fincher tipped his hand literally in the opening scene by showing that shattered table and Nick's confusion from it), I disagree.

The role needed someone with softer edges who is capable of steely austerity if required. Witherspoon 5-10 years earlier would've been a solid get, or Paltrow as someone else mentioned. But Pike just exudes that cold ice queen energy and from the moment she shows up, there's something off. And there shouldn't be.

Hence why she didn't get an Oscar nomination. (Well, that and the fact that it's just not a good book.)

But the tack that the first half of the film takes is to treat it as a mystery, but there's no logical suspects because that opening scene with the table shows that Nick (who is clearly the main suspect) is innocent. And considering the whole point of Amy's scheme is that Nick would take the fall for her murder because "it's always the husband," the film needed to play into that. If you cut that scene and refocus the Amy stuff a bit more up to the big reveal, you can actually make the mystery work because you'll have the audience thinking that it could be Nick that did it. That makes the big reveal at the midpoint even more impactful. But as it is, the film is playing catch-up to an audience that already knows it can't be Nick, and the only logical conclusion is that it was Amy herself. And it doesn't help that Pike plays her so obviously off-tilt from the start.

Gone Girl works best when we know Amy is evil and Pike is good at playing that aspect of her, but it only works on the back half. The first hour is what kills it for me.

I remember Malice! Has anyone else even seen that movie? Kidman was definitely convincing playing that type of role.

Yes, her character in it bears many similarities to Amy. I still remember that jumpscare when . It's not a great movie overall, but all of the actors make their mark. 

Exactly. If she had brought the same energy as her character in Se7en in the first half of Gone Girl, the movie would have pulled off the shock to great success.

Paltrow had been in a ton of period dramas at that point so I doubt that was the reason. It's possible that he considered her or even offered her the role, but at that point she had already thrown her acting career out of the window.