10 Movies That Fired Their Lead Actors During Filming
We all like to imagine the movie-making process as being a fun and flawless one, but that's
rarely the case.
It's generally gruelling, exhausting and full of obstacles - the most extreme of which is
when the lead actor is dismissed from their job.Whether it's because they misbehaved in
some way, because they simply weren't ultimately deemed suitable for their role or otherwise,
a number of leading men and women have been asked to leave movies after production has
commenced - and that's what this video is all about.Here are ten movies that fired their
lead actors during filming.
Valley of the Dolls (1967 - 20th Century Fox) While Judy Garland wasn't necessary in the
lead role of 1967's Valley of the Dolls, she was undoubtedly the biggest star in the movie's
cast.
She was the original actress playing fictional Broadway star Helen Lawson in the movie - but
she was fired soon after production began.Garland apparently turned up to work blind drunk and
was replaced by Susan Hayward as a result.
Garland was on a downward spiral at that point in her life and she died just two years later
from an overdose of barbiturates.
She was just 47.
Mansion of Blood (2015 - TomCat Films) Mansion of Blood is a low-budget horror movie
that started filming back in 2011 but didn't actually get a release until 2015.
It starred Gary Busey, who is notoriously unpredictable - filmmakers never know which
Busey is going to turn up.
Unfortunately, the impossible-to-work-with incarnation of the actor turned up for this
movie.He was fired for directing inappropriate comments towards the female members of the
cast.
However, he filmed enough to be included in the final movie and, in fact, the marketing
for the movie still focused very much on him.
Apocalypse Now (1979 - United Artists) Francis Ford Coppola had originally cast brilliant
method actor Harvey Keitel as the lead character - Captain Benjamin L. Willard - in 1979's
iconic Apocalypse Now after seeing him in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, but it just
didn't work out for him.Less than a week after the movie had started shooting, Keitel was
dismissed from the role of Willard, with Coppola stating that the actor had "found it difficult
to play him as a passive onlooker".
Martin Sheen famously replaced him and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Lords of Flatbush (1974 - Columbia Pictures) 1974's The Lords of Flatbush originally featured
a street gang that included the likes of Richard Gere, Sylvester Stallone and Henry Winkler
but, due to two of those guys not getting along, one of them was dismissed during filming.It
was Richard Gere - who was originally cast as Chico - who was fired, because he and Sylvester
Stallone reportedly fought like cats and dogs.
The pair actually came to blows - with Stallone elbowing Gere in the head at one point - and
Stallone demanded that Gere be fired.
Gere's role eventually went to Perry King.
Stallone and Gere's feud supposedly resulted in Stallone starting that hilarious rumour
about Gere and the gerbil.
You know the one.
Predator (1987 - 20th Century Fox) Although the leading man in 1987's Predator
was Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's hard to argue that the star of the movie was the titular
creature itself.
Kevin Peter Hall played the alien, with Peter Cullen voicing it, but the actor originally
cast in the role was far more famous.It was none other than Jean-Claude Van Damme, but
he really struggled in the claustrophobic rubber suit - even passing out due to how
hot he was inside it on a couple of occasions.
Some people say he simply quit the movie, but others say he was harshly fired by producer
Joel Silver - who apparently dismissed him after he passed out for a third time.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011 - Paramount Pictures)
Megan Fox was initially an integral part of the Transformers movie franchise - appearing
in both of the first two movies - but she lost her part in the third by comparing director
Michael Bay to Hitler in an interview.
When executive producer Steven Spielberg heard about it, he immediately called for her to
be fired from the film.Spielberg is famously sympathetic to those who suffered through
the Holocaust and didn't find Fox's comment even slightly funny.
So, although she was signed up to appear in Dark of the Moon, she was fired before her
part actually started filming.
The Other Side (2011 - Myriad Pictures) Comedy-drama movie The Other Side was supposed
to be Lindsay Lohan's big comeback after her starring roles in the 2007 commercial failure
I Know Who Killed Me and the 2009 film Labor Pains, which didn't even get a theatrical
release.Lohan was signed up and even got as far as being insured - just in case she proved
herself to be unprofessional - but just as filming was getting underway, she was fired.
Director David Michaels decided that she simply wasn't "bankable" and Olivia Thirlby replaced
her in the lead role of Max Mackenzie.
However, in spite of it filming in 2011, it is yet to be released.
The Lovely Bones (2009 - Paramount Pictures) 2009's The Lovely Bones was a rare misfire
for The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson - and that might be something to do with the
fact that the first choice actor for the leading role was fired during production.That man
was Ryan Gosling, and it was originally suggested that he was dismissed for being too young
to play a man with a teenaged daughter, but Gosling has since told the truth about the
incident - apparently, he was fired for being overweight!
He was replaced by Ted star Mark Wahlberg.
Her (2013 - Warner Bros. Pictures) In the 2013 sci-fi love story Her, a sentient
operating system falls in love with a recently divorced man.
English actress Samantha Morton was originally cast as the voice of the operating system
- and she did, in fact, finish the movie - but she was dismissed from the role during post-production.Director
Spike Jonze just didn't think she was right for the role and replaced her with Scarlett
Johannson.
Joaquin Phoenix, who played the aforementioned recently divorced man, worked with Johansson
during post-production to help her nail the part perfectly.
Back to the Future (1985 - Universal Pictures) It's hard to imagine anyone other than Michael
J. Fox playing Marty McFly in the legendary Back to the Future movies, but it was in fact
a completely different actor who began production playing the character.Mask star Eric Stoltz
had actually spent five weeks on the movie before being given his marching orders.
Director Robert Zemeckis felt that Stoltz was playing Marty too seriously.
His release cost $3 million, but bringing Fox in undoubtedly made the movie far funnier
and far more successful than it would otherwise have been (it should be noted, however, that
Stoltz did make it into the final movie - it is his fist that punches Biff in the diner
in 1955!).
Thanks for watching our video of ten movies that fired their lead actor during filming.
Do you think these actors deserve to be fired?
Which other leading men or women were dismissed from their roles during production?
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