Movie Stars Considered For Roles That Went To Other Movie Stars

I know there are a lot of obvious examples of this. Feel free to list those but I'm also interested in the less known. I will start with one that may be less known. The 2010 Roman Polanski movie "The Ghost Writer" with Ewan McGregor was originally announced as Nicolas Cage. I think the final choice McGregor was better and it is hard to imagine the film with Cage in that role.

What are your examples of movie stars considered for roles that went to other movie stars?

 

I believe Michelle Pfieffer was originally considered for the role of Ripley in Alien before Sigourney Weaver was cast in the role.

 

Natalie Portman, Carey Mulligan and Ellen Page lost out to Rooney Mara for the role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

 

"Beverly Hills Cop" was supposed to be a Sylvester Stallone vehicle until Eddie Murphy got attached and they re-wrote a majority of the script.

Robert DeNiro was in talks to play Josh Baskins in "Big", the role that made Tom Hanks a household name. Man, that woulda sucked.

 

OJ Simpson was considered for the role of The Terminator but he was rejected because producers thought he looked "too nice".

 

I've read that the mid 80s Canadian pop sensation, Corey Hart, was originally supposed to play Marty McFly in Back To The Future. As we all know, the role went to another Canadian, Michael J. Fox

 

Tom Selleck was originally chose to play Indiana Jones in "Raiders Of The Lost Ark".

 

Marilyn Monroe was considered for the lead in "Breakfast At Tiffany's".

 

Will Smith turned down "The Matrix" to do "Wild Wild West"...

Keanu Reeves must owe him some beers

 

Eric Stolz as Marty McFly.

 

I believe Sinatra was considered for Dirty Harry.

 

b-movie star Wings Hauser was almost Han Solo...

sounds like Harrison Ford has had a couple close calls!

Buddy Ebsen was almost the Tin Man in "Wizard of Oz" (famous story about being allergic to the makeup)

 

Warren Beatty was originally cast as "Bill", but dropped out of KILL BILL before production started and was replaced with David Carradine.

Michael Jai White was removed from the movie entirely, but can be seen in the original trailer.

 

I believe production already started with Stolz as Marty, but Zemeckis (or somebody) decided it wasn't working and fired him. Details anyone?

The part of Dr. Gillian Taylor, played by Catherine Hicks in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was originally intended for Eddie Murphy.


Cary Grant was the original choice for James Bond in Dr. No.

Melanie Griffith as Thelma in Thelma and Louise

Warren Beatty as Jack Horner in Boogie Nights

John Travolta as Forrest Gump

Alec Baldwin as Dr. Richard Kimball in The Fugitive

 

Ewan McGregor was originally going to be the lead in The Beach but was replaced by Leo DiCaprio as the studio wanted someone more bankable. That caused a rift between McGregor and director Danny Boyle that still hasn't been patched up, over a decade later.

A replacement that actually didn't happen: there's long been a rumour that Ronald Reagan was slated to play Rick in Casablanca, but that's a Hollywood legend; Bogey was the only actor seriously considered for the part.

That's true; Zemeckis thought he was "too intense and serious" for the role and canned him. There's footage of some of the scenes he shot on YouTube and one of the DVD releases of BTTF. John Lithgow was originally cast as Doc Brown too, but pulled out early and was replaced by Christopher Lloyd.

 

It's a great story on Back to the Future. The way I heard it, producer Steven Spielberg was off in Europe either shooting something or scouting locations while Zemeckis shot for six weeks in LA with Stolz. Spielberg returned and watched a rough cut, and everybody agreed: the movie wasn't working. Stolz was too serious an actor for the role; they needed someone with a lighter touch. (The moviespeak is: "there was a problem with tone.")

They immediately went back to their original choice for the role, which was Michael J. Fox, who was unavailable due to starring in the weekly TV series Family Ties. The producers were unwilling to let Fox do both the show and the movie, which would have to be shot simultaneously. Universal made a deal with the show's producers, promising not to exhaust the actor, make sure he didn't miss a day of shooting on the show, and also gave the producers some money and a development deal.

Fox later said he slept about 3 hours a day for weeks, shooting the movie mostly at night and rehearsing the show during the day (and shooting the show on two days a week, preshoot and audience). But it worked out well for all concerned.

Stolz has never publicly commented the movie, but I know Universal had to pay him in full. He's a solid actor and has also directed a lot of TV in recent years, so his career did more than OK.

Back to the Future is a movie series with a bunch of weird cast changes and scandals...

Back to actors who turned down roles:

There's a million of them. I recall that Chris Farley did the voice of Shrek, and then had the misfortune of O.D.'ing while the cartoon was still be animated, forcing them to hire Mike Myers instead, and redoing the entire character from scratch. Paul Reubens turned down a major role in Ghostbusters. There's a bunch more:

http://www.notstarring.com/favorites.html

I think Jack Nicholson is the champ at turning down starring roles:

http://www.notstarring.com/actors/nicholson-jack

Famously, Steve McQueen was Spielberg's first choice for the father in Close Encounters, but the actor balked at the scene that required him to cry and break down. This forced Spielberg to hire an actor he had used before, Richard Dreyfuss (from Jaws).

 

Harrison Ford was supposed to play Eddie Valiant in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

 

Truman Capote modeled Holly Golightly on MM: it was felt that this would make her casting for the part awkward, plus she was a PITA to work with. Capote campaigned for MM but later admitted Hepburn had been the better choice.

There are so many "if only's" with Monroe it's impossible to sort them out. I think John Huston was right: she'd have been OK if she had shunned psychiatrists.

 

Hitchcock almost started shooting Marnie with Grace Kelly in the leading role. She backed out when the royal family of Monaco were aiming for a more 'serious' tone (Rainier, Prince of Monaco, was a huge Hitch admirer, though).

 

Chris Farley died before the "real" production started so nothing needed to be redone. John Goodman was considered at that point but Eddie Murphy objected to that- he felt that Goodman wasn't a big enough name and didn't want to work with him (!).
Much later on there was one incident that did lead to more than half of the finished film being redone- Steven Spielberg decided that Shrek needed an accent so Mike Myers had to re record everything with his fake Scottish accent.
Talking about Dreamworks cartoon- Megamind started off with Robert downey Jr as the main character but he had a fall out with the director and was replaced by Will Farrell.
The original four zoo animals in Madagascar were the four characters from Seinfeld but Jerry Seinfeld wanted to have full control and direct the film himself. Jeffery Katzenberg said no.
Just one more (promise!)- "Over the hedge" was written for Jim Carrey but the schedule didn't work out so Bruce Willies took over. The character had to be re written a bit to fit him.