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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 27, 2019 17:41:42 GMT
Jason Robards and Mick Jagger in the originally conceived Fitzcarraldo below. Would this have been a better film without Kinski?
How about Keitel in Apocalypse Now?
Looking only for started films that had to then be "re-started" not merely actors dropping out of the cast before filming. What are some other great examples here?
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Post by stephen on Jan 27, 2019 17:54:23 GMT
I would've been very interested to see what Robards and Jagger could've brought to the story (Jagger's character was excised entirely on the reshoot), but Kinski is the missing element of madness that makes the whole endeavor so incredible.
I think overall Keitel is a better actor than Martin Sheen, but I think Sheen's unassuming, near-everyman nature kind of makes the Willard character work even better. Yeah, he's a special-ops assassin, but he looks like the guy next door, and seeing how the war ruined so many lives and souls by seeing it writ large on Sheen's performance is one of the key things that makes Apocalypse Now work to begin with.
As for my own examples:
* George Miller wanted to make Mad Max: Fury Road with Mel Gibson early in the 2000s, but 9/11 stalled production, and then Gibson went on to make The Passion of the Christ, thus stalling it again, and Miller was making Happy Feet while Gibson was doing Apocalypto with the intention of doing Fury Road immediately afterward . . . and then Gibson's personal problems put the skids to that. I think Tom Hardy is a fine Max and while I do appreciate that the recasting lends a sort of mythical edge to the character (especially if one subscribes to the theory that Hardy's Max is actually the Feral Child from The Road Warrior, adopting the moniker of Mad Max), Gibson would've still owned the role.
* Peter Ustinov was originally going to play Inspector Clouseau, but left over a salary dispute, so Peter Sellers took the role. No doubt that Ustinov's Poirot would've been reasonably close to what could've been.
* Sergio Leone wanted the three heavies at the beginning of Once Upon a Time in the West (played in real life by Woody Strode, Jack Elam and Al Mulock) to be played by Clint Eastwood, Lee van Cleef and Eli Wallach as both a nod to their previous outing as well as to subvert audience expectations by having the three stars of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly get diced in the first ten minutes. Lee and Eli were game to do it, but Clint refused.
* The original concept of Terminator 2 would've had the T-1000 be played by Michael Biehn, completely inverting the dynamic of the original film.
* A near-miss/twofer: Paul Thomas Anderson wrote the role of Freddie Quell with Joaquin Phoenix in mind, but Joaquin went on his hiatus from acting, so PTA wound up seeking out a replacement actor. He had Jeremy Renner penciled in (and James Franco claims he was in the running, too, which makes me shudder), but then he got the go-ahead to do Inherent Vice. While writing Inherent Vice (with Robert Downey, Jr. in mind for Doc Sportello), Phoenix suddenly resurfaced and became available, and PTA put Vice on the backburner and made The Master, and while doing so realized that RDJ was too old for Doc, and cast Phoenix in the part.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jan 27, 2019 17:59:58 GMT
I would've been very interested to see what Robards and Jagger could've brought to the story (Jagger's character was excised entirely on the reshoot), but Kinski is the missing element of madness that makes the whole endeavor so incredible. I think overall Keitel is a better actor than Martin Sheen, but I think Sheen's unassuming, near-everyman nature kind of makes the Willard character work even better. Yeah, he's a special-ops assassin, but he looks like the guy next door, and seeing how the war ruined so many lives and souls by seeing it writ large on Sheen's performance is one of the key things that makes Apocalypse Now work to begin with. As for my own examples: * George Miller wanted to make Mad Max: Fury Road with Mel Gibson early in the 2000s, but 9/11 stalled production, and then Gibson went on to make The Passion of the Christ, thus stalling it again, and Miller was making Happy Feet while Gibson was doing Apocalypto with the intention of doing Fury Road immediately afterward . . . and then Gibson's personal problems put the skids to that. I think Tom Hardy is a fine Max and while I do appreciate that the recasting lends a sort of mythical edge to the character (especially if one subscribes to the theory that Hardy's Max is actually the Feral Child from The Road Warrior, adopting the moniker of Mad Max), Gibson would've still owned the role.
* Peter Ustinov was originally going to play Inspector Clouseau, but left over a salary dispute, so Peter Sellers took the role. No doubt that Ustinov's Poirot would've been reasonably close to what could've been. * Sergio Leone wanted the three heavies at the beginning of Once Upon a Time in the West (played in real life by Woody Strode, Jack Elam and Al Mulock) to be played by Clint Eastwood, Lee van Cleef and Eli Wallach as both a nod to their previous outing as well as to subvert audience expectations by having the three stars of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly get diced in the first ten minutes. Lee and Eli were game to do it, but Clint refused. * The original concept of Terminator 2 would've had the T-1000 be played by Michael Biehn, completely inverting the dynamic of the original film.* A near-miss/twofer: Paul Thomas Anderson wrote the role of Freddie Quell with Joaquin Phoenix in mind, but Joaquin went on his hiatus from acting, so PTA wound up seeking out a replacement actor. He had Jeremy Renner penciled in (and James Franco claims he was in the running, too, which makes me shudder), but then he got the go-ahead to do Inherent Vice. While writing Inherent Vice (with Robert Downey, Jr. in mind for Doc Sportello), Phoenix suddenly resurfaced and became available, and PTA put Vice on the backburner and made The Master, and while doing so realized that RDJ was too old for Doc, and cast Phoenix in the part. Oh man, I would have loved the two of those... Speaking of, why the hell hasn't Cameron cast Biehn recently?!
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Post by Mattsby on Jan 27, 2019 18:03:00 GMT
Peter Firth replaced Ian Bannen in Sunday Bloody Sunday after a few weeks of filming.
Woody Allen's September is a major case of this and I think it might've been more interesting with the original cast: Walken, Charles Durning, Maureen O'Sullivan (actually Mia's mother, so it'd add extra depth perhaps), well Walken was initially replaced by Sam Shepard, then finally to Sam Waterston. Denholm Elliott for Durning. Elaine Stritch for O'Sullivan. Waterston is okay but he's the glue to the piece and doesn't have the appeal or charm that Walken might've brought.
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Post by stephen on Jan 27, 2019 18:04:08 GMT
Speaking of, why the hell hasn't Cameron cast Biehn recently?! I mean, Cameron's only made two movies in the last twenty years, and neither one really fits Biehn's milieu (well, Avatar might, but that film feels so un-Cameron to me). I do wonder if perhaps The Abyss put Biehn at odds with Cameron; I know Cameron campaigned for Biehn to get an Oscar nod for it, but Biehn only appeared in a deleted scene in Terminator 2 after that (and I wonder if perhaps that was a contractual obligation). The Abyss was a brutal shoot, and very few people came out of that with a favorable opinion towards it and Cameron in particular.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 27, 2019 18:15:21 GMT
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote would be another one - I haven't seen the 2018 film but would any of the earlier casts been an improvement there (?) - it's a great unanswerable question.....
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Post by Viced on Jan 27, 2019 18:34:22 GMT
Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Eyes Wide Shut.
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Post by Mattsby on Jan 27, 2019 19:21:33 GMT
Kiss Me Stupid (haven't seen) Billy Wilder replaced Peter Sellers, after six weeks of filming, with Ray Walston? Oof. Sellers was having heart issues and physically wasn't able to do the role or at least they wouldn't wait for him to recoup...
What was the TWBB situation? Paul Dano had the smaller part of Paul, and someone else was playing Eli? But PTA fired the other kid 2-3 weeks into production and Dano was asked to take over the bigger role?
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Post by stephen on Jan 27, 2019 19:27:42 GMT
What was the TWBB situation? Paul Dano had the smaller part of Paul, and someone else was playing Eli? But PTA fired the other kid 2-3 weeks into production and Dano was asked to take over the bigger role? Yeah. Kel O'Neill was originally playing Eli, but a few weeks in, he left the production. Rumors have spawned from this mysterious dismissal, with people thinking that he was "intimidated" by DDL, but both DDL and PTA have refuted this. It just wasn't working out, and PTA had the stroke of genius to ask Paul Dano to play both roles. I think Dano is actually excellent as Eli and he deserves a lot of plaudits for coming in to play a huge role with only a weekend of prep time, but I wish he'd had much longer to prepare, just to see what he could've come up with.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2019 13:20:50 GMT
Claire Danes replaced Natalie Portman in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet after producers found the age difference in action between DiCaprio and Portman obscene.
@raygittes07 's thread reminded me...
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speeders
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Post by speeders on Feb 2, 2019 15:08:17 GMT
Mark Wahlberg replaced Ryan Gosling last minute when Gosling showed up overweight to the set of The Lovely Bones. Gosling was 26 year supposed to play a suburban father of two teenage girls + an extra kid, was bizarre casting to begin with. Probably would've been better than Wahlberg though
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Post by quetee on Feb 2, 2019 16:05:15 GMT
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Post by stephen on Feb 2, 2019 16:06:23 GMT
Mark Wahlberg replaced Ryan Gosling last minute when Gosling showed up overweight to the set of The Lovely Bones. Gosling was 26 year supposed to play a suburban father of two teenage girls + an extra kid, was bizarre casting to begin with. Probably would've been better than Wahlberg though I always thought it would've been a stroke of genius if Gosling had wound up playing George Harvey and Tucci played the dad. Would've completely subverted audience expectations, and I think both would've been well-suited to the roles.
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speeders
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Post by speeders on Feb 2, 2019 18:03:44 GMT
Mark Wahlberg replaced Ryan Gosling last minute when Gosling showed up overweight to the set of The Lovely Bones. Gosling was 26 year supposed to play a suburban father of two teenage girls + an extra kid, was bizarre casting to begin with. Probably would've been better than Wahlberg though I always thought it would've been a stroke of genius if Gosling had wound up playing George Harvey and Tucci played the dad. Would've completely subverted audience expectations, and I think both would've been well-suited to the roles. That's an interesting point. Yes, Gosling probably would have given Harvey more depth and made him feel more realistic with the childlike dollhouse-fascination would have felt more believable with him as a stunted child. Tucci was fine but kind of a standard Law & Order-esque portrayal of a pedophile.
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Post by stephen on Feb 2, 2019 18:13:01 GMT
I always thought it would've been a stroke of genius if Gosling had wound up playing George Harvey and Tucci played the dad. Would've completely subverted audience expectations, and I think both would've been well-suited to the roles. That's an interesting point. Yes, Gosling probably would have given Harvey more depth and made him feel more realistic with the childlike dollhouse-fascination would have felt more believable with him as a stunted child. Tucci was fine but kind of a standard Law & Order-esque portrayal of a pedophile. Exactly. Hell, if Gosling wanted to keep his Lars and the Real Girl mustache, let him. The Lovely Bones is an eternally aggravating film because Ronan was superb, Tucci was good (but as you say, kind of boilerplate), and I appreciated the visuals . . . but I also feel Jackson completely missed the forest for the trees. I will forever wonder about what Lynne Ramsay intended to do, as she was wanting to adapt it before Jackson got his hands on it, and I think that while it wouldn't have been visually splendid, it might've felt more raw and visceral.
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Post by SeanJoyce on Feb 2, 2019 18:40:12 GMT
James Remar was fired from Aliens after production began and was replaced by Michael Biehn over "creative differences" (cocaine).
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Post by stephen on Feb 2, 2019 18:41:46 GMT
I'm not sure how far into production it occurred, but James Remar was fired from Aliens and replaced by Michael Biehn. It was actually into actual shooting. There are scenes in the hive in the final print where it's actually Remar on-screen and not Biehn; any shot you see of Hicks from behind in the hive is Remar. Biehn couldn't even customize his armor the way the other Marines did because of this.
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Post by SeanJoyce on Feb 2, 2019 18:50:56 GMT
I'm not sure how far into production it occurred, but James Remar was fired from Aliens and replaced by Michael Biehn. It was actually into actual shooting. There are scenes in the hive in the final print where it's actually Remar on-screen and not Biehn; any shot you see of Hicks from behind in the hive is Remar. Biehn couldn't even customize his armor the way the other Marines did because of this. Yeah, evidently my post modification came too late. I knew in was during shooting, just wasn't sure how far into it; I wanted to guess half.
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Post by stephen on Feb 2, 2019 18:55:45 GMT
This isn't so much a casting do-over, but rather a "what could have been":
Robert Mitchum was initially cast in Tombstone to play Old Man Clanton, the leader of the Cowboys. He was originally supposed to die midway through the movie (I believe right after the OK Corral), which leads to Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo taking over the gang. But prior to shooting, Mitchum fell from his horse and injured his back, forcing him to quit the part. He wound up doing the narration for the film (and what a fine, fine job he did!), but imagining Ol' Mitch scowling at his ne'er-do-well sons and the other gang members when they tell him about the arrival of the Earps -- damn that horse!
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Post by jakesully on Feb 2, 2019 21:50:54 GMT
Right now , the only one I can think of is Michael Shannon was cast as one of the Tremor brothers in Smokin Aces but because he was such an asshole to the costume designer (or makeup artist can't remember atm) he was fired on the spot and replaced by Chris Pine who was flat out awesome in it.
Another re casting that still puzzles me to this day is Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes in The Dark Knight. I thought Katie was quite good in Batman Begins as Rachel (and certainly hotter than Maggie) Homes did a serviceable job at least imo and certainly looked the part .
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Post by Leo_The_Last on Feb 4, 2019 1:44:32 GMT
Robards in Fitzcarraldo would have been interesting, but Kinski brought his own kind of craziness to the part because, well, he was crazy, and we probably wouldn't have those wonderful shouting matches between Kinski and the crew. Swiss guy Walter Saxer was one of them and to this day I don't understand why in all those years of Kinski doing his maniac routine no one stepped forward and punched him in the face to end his bullshit attitude. He was a great actor, but an asshole, and I'm sure he was one of those "barking dogs do not bite"-persons, a real coward. At least the Natives proposed to kill him...
Mad Max without Mad Mel, yeah, missed opportunity. Theron was the killer in that one.
Love Keitel, but Coppola probably was right about his decision. Sheen is more the observant kind of guy, and that's what the material called for.
Fox instead of Stoltz has to be one of the prime examples of this, and they were right about it. (He was always their first choice.)
Don Quixote had about a thousand false starts. Rochefort, Duvall, Michael Palin. Rochefort certainly had the looks.
Mandy Patinkin was replaced by Jack Nicholson on Heartburn after a day of shooting.
Mike Nichols also was going to do the original idea of what became The Goodbye Girl, with Neil Simon and starring Robert De Niro, right after Taxi Driver (known as Bogart Slept Here back then):
De Niro didn't get along with Nichols at all, and in a Playboy interview he did a few decades ago you could still sense his frustrations over the whole experience (apparently Nichols felt he was the big genius and De Niro didn't bow down before him or something, at least that's De Niro's version.)
Viggo Mortensen replaced Stuart Townsend in the Lord of the Rings. Scarlett Johansson instead of Samantha Morton in Her. Van Damme in Predator.
Scorsese was a late replacement for the part of the creepy passenger in Taxi Driver, something he would probably never do again in this day and age, times have changed...
Hugo Weaving replaced James Purefoy on V for Vendetta after a few weeks of shooting.
And the most obvious answer, I wonder why no one mentioned it yet, Plummer for Spacey in All the Money in the World. Plummer was always the right choice, but still, cowardly decision by Ridley Scott, at least in my opinion.
And then there's the production history of one of my favorite movies, The Man Who Would Be King. Not exactly what the thread is asking for, but still:
Michael Caine talks a little bit about that in the clip below (by the way, there's no one better at telling such storys as Caine, I could listen to him all day long):
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Post by stephen on Feb 4, 2019 2:21:29 GMT
A fun one: Liam Neeson was attached to play Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's long-gestating biopic, which was initially supposed to be made in the mid-2000s. After several successive drafts (including a godawful one by Paul Webb), Neeson began to feel like he wasn't right for the role, and bowed out. Spielberg wanted Daniel Day-Lewis to take the role, but (as always) Day-Lewis needed a lot of convincing, which both Spielberg and Neeson did vigorously before he agreed to take the role.
Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese's Silence (which deserves its own thread when it comes to production hassles) kept stalling and being postponed. The film's critical role of Father Ferreira was initially supposed to be played by Daniel Day-Lewis (who had worked with Marty twice before), with Benicio del Toro and Gael Garcia Bernal rounding out the ensemble as the Jesuit priests sent to find him. When Silence finally went into production, Day-Lewis had won his third Oscar and gone back into hibernation until PTA wangled him out of it a year later. But with DDL unable to fill the role, Scorsese turned to Liam Neeson.
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Post by Mattsby on Feb 4, 2019 2:43:10 GMT
Bette Midler filmed for three days before dropping out of Phil Spector due to a herniated disc? Well I think they really lucked out, getting major talent and a top-notch performance from Helen Mirren, who btw called Pacino the most beloved actor in the world...
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speeders
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Post by speeders on Feb 4, 2019 13:01:19 GMT
Another re casting that still puzzles me to this day is Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes in The Dark Knight. I thought Katie was quite good in Batman Begins as Rachel (and certainly hotter than Maggie) Homes did a serviceable job at least imo and certainly looked the part . Apparently, Tom Cruise demanded she drop out of The Dark Knight and do Mad Money instead... He clearly did not have her best interests at heart.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 23, 2019 3:17:34 GMT
Another I just read about -
Raquel Welch was fired from Cannery Row (1982) after seven days of filming, she then sued MGM for wrongful termination and defamation - wound up winning $10.8 mil. Whoa. And the movie only made like $5mil at the box office so I guess she had the last laugh. But.....the movie is a little underrated I think, full of whimsy, and really beautifully shot by Sven Nykvist. Debra Winger replaced Welch, and though you could hardly believe Winger as a tough prostitute, she's charming, odd, and appealing in a way that works with the tone of the movie.
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