Movie Roles That Stars Turned Down

Speaking of missed opportunities...

Travolta was attached to Oliver Stone's The Doors in the late 1970s even to the point where he was singing regularly with the band and talked of touring. The project went into development hell for the next decade.

And actually Stone's movie on the Doors was supposed to be a documentary at first, but Jim died/killed himself/moved to Zanzibar...

 

Wayne as Taggart? Maybe they should have thrown in a perfectly good hand car and have had that faggot from Kansas City talk to him.

Man, he would have been something in that role. But he was right, he could not say those lines. Not The Duke.

 

Yes, John Wayne was asked to be in Blazing Saddles. He said he couldn't appear in the movie because of his image but he'd be first in line to go see it.


Apocalypse Now is full of cast intrigue.

Steve McQueen was first choice for Willard but turned it down. Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, James Caan and Gene Hackman also passed. Harvey Keitel was given the role but replaced by Sheen after filming had already started.

In another twist, Sheen red for the part of Michael in Godfather. Coppola didn't really plan to direct AP now himself and offered it to George Lucas first but he was laying the groundwork for Star Wars and didn't accept.

 

Ed O'Neil was the first choice to play Al Swearengen in Deadwood.

David Milch swears the series would have been much better with Al Bundy than with Ian McShane.

 

Sam Kinison and Roseanne were the first choice for Al and Peg. Both turned it down because they were going to be movie stars and didn't want to do TV.

 

They would have been horrible, well, at least Kinison would have.

 

Maybe with O'Neil they could of ended the show properly.

 

Mel Brooks first choices for the Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder roles in Blazing Saddles? Richard Pryor (who co-wrote the script) and Gig Young.

 

Pryor was shot down by the studio execs because they were afraid he'd go on a coke bender and shut down production halfway though. They figured if he just stayed on as a writer and got messed up, at least filming could continue.

 

The Salkinds were pushing Richard Donner to cast guys like Burt Reynolds, Robert Redford and Nick Nolte as Superman in the late 70s. Thankfully, that did not happen.

 

Mentioned this on the "useless info" thread, but "The Longest Yard" was written for Lee Majors. But he couldn't get out of his contract with "The Big Valley," so they went to Burt Reynolds.

Doesn't really fit the thread exactly, but I know Paramount's Robert Evans originally wanted James Caan to play Michael Corleone in The Godfather (with Carmine Caridi, who went on to play one of the Rosato brothers in GF2, to play Sonny). But Coppola held out for Al Pacino, who was a virtual unknown at the time. I think Robert Redford was also considered for Michael, and Martin Sheen read for the part.

 

An old SNL sketch about Star Wars screen tests: Christopher Walken as Han Solo, Richard Dreyfuss as C3PO and Walter Matthau as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kevin Spacey is spot-on as Walken and Matthau, with Darrell Hammond as Dreyfuss.

http://www.yikers.com/video_christopher_walken_star_wars_screen_test.html

Couldn't find the other one with Pulp Fiction screen tests: Burt Reynolds (Norm MacDonald) and Jerry Mathers (Darrell Hammond) trying out for the role of Vincent Vega, Ann B. Davis (Ana Gasteyer) reading for Mia Wallace and Walter Cronkite (Hammond) trying out for The Gimp. MacDonald also plays Tarantino in that one.