Picking someone to take over a role from another actor is never easy, especially when the original
performer drew praise for their take on that character. But recasting is often unavoidable,
especially for sequels and remakes. Here are some more role replacements that ruined movies.
Roger Moore and Sean Connery each made seven appearances as James Bond,
though many 007 fans will tell you that Connery is the only Bond.
A CBS News poll concluded that 51 percent of Americans chose Connery as their favorite Bond,
with Pierce Brosnan coming in a distant second. George Lazenby, the man who replaced Connery in
the role for 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, received just 1 percent of the vote,
which tells you everything you need to know about the gulf between these two actors.
While critical opinion toward the film itself has softened over time,
Lazenby's performance is still a bone of contention — inevitably compared to those
delivered by Connery in the franchise's five previous entries. The Chicago Reader said that,
"George Lazenby has so much reserve as James Bond
that he makes Sean Connery seem almost frenetic by comparison."
Reviews in the UK were just as critical of the leading man's turn as the British
Secret Service agent, with London-based outlet Time
Out calling him a "stunning nonentity" fronting a film with "no redeeming features."
Following in the footsteps of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in the Terminator franchise
was never going to be easy — she gave a performance so layered and compelling that
even the most talented of actresses would have struggled to do the character justice.
"I volunteered."
"Why?"
"It was a chance to meet the legend … Sarah Connor."
The first to give it a shot was Lena Headey, who was cast as the titular heroine in the
short-lived TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Fox canceled the show after
two seasons, leaving Headey's Game of Thrones colleague Emilia Clarke to carry the torch.
2015's Terminator Genisys was heavily criticized for using that old time travel chestnut to rewrite
the beginning of the Terminator story to suit the filmmakers' purposes. The main problem,
however, wasn't the infuriatingly muddled timeline — it was the casting.
Veteran film critic Peter Bradshaw dressed down the whole main cast in his one-star
review for The Guardian, calling Emilia Clarke's take on Connor "uninteresting."
1981's The Clash of the Titans attempted to give Greek mythology the Star Wars treatment,
taking the story of Perseus and turning it into a sprawling epic. Director Desmond Davis went
with Harry Hamlin in the role of Perseus, a son of Zeus who in legend beheads the Gorgon Medusa
in order to save his beloved Princess Andromeda from a giant Kraken. Hamlin remains active in
the industry, though he's still arguably best remembered for his turn as Perseus.
The same cannot be said for Sam Worthington, best known as the star of James Cameron's
budding Avatar franchise. Director Louis Leterrier entrusted the Australian with
the lead role in his 2010 remake, though his choice was called into question when the negative
reviews started to pour in. Worthington's earned his share of acclaim over the years,
but the Titans remake is one release he most likely wouldn't mind leaving off his résumé;
Quickflix's Simon Miraudo questioned how Worthington had ever managed to become a
Hollywood actor after watching his performance as Perseus, in which
"[He] does nothing but glare. His battle speeches are neither
rousing nor particularly intelligible."
Despite its name, 1984's Friday the 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter was
far from the last installment in this long-running horror franchise. In fact,
eight more films have been made since the so-called final chapter, though the one that
directly followed it marked a major dropoff in quality. Part 4 has been described as,
"One of the last really excellent horror romps that focus on character dynamic and family."
Felix Vasquez of Cinema Crazed praised Corey Feldman for his
"standout performance as young Tommy Jarvis."
Feldman went on to make a name for himself in The Goonies, Stand by Me, and The Lost Boys,
though before he did, he reprised his Friday the 13th role in 1985's Part 5: A New Beginning.
Unfortunately, he only appeared in the prologue, and a time jump meant he was replaced by the
painfully dull John Shepherd. Teenage Tommy was static compared to his younger self,
though Shepherd shouldn't shoulder the blame entirely. Some blamed what they called the
"hamfisted directing" of David Steinmann while James Kendrick of Q Network argued that
"[The] gory antics are so restrained by the insistence of the MPAA rating system that the film
feels like it was edited with one of Jason's bloody-rusty weapons."
Wesley Snipes rejected the opportunity to return as Willie Mays Hayes in 1994's Major League 2
because he had become a movie star in his own right by then. With the
Cleveland Indians down a man, the filmmakers turned to Omar Epps.
Director David S. Ward had worked with Epps on The Program the previous year, which was a sports
movie following the exploits of a college football team. The big difference between the two films,
however, was that The Program wasn't meant to be funny. Epps didn't have a background in comedy,
and it showed in his timing. Even those who didn't think the film was all that bad admitted that,
"Omar Epps taking over for Wesley Snipes was a complete bomb of a decision. Bad all around."
Veteran film critic Mark Kermode summed up 2015's The Transporter Refueled with a single question:
"What exactly is the point of a 'Transporter' movie without Jason Statham?"
When it was revealed that Ed Skrein was to replace Statham as Special
Forces op-turned-private driver Frank Martin in the fourth Transporter film,
questions were raised about the former's ability to carry the franchise forward.
Though the Transporter films didn't exactly change the action movie landscape, they benefited from
Statham's presence, athletic prowess, and combat skills. His replacement lacked that experience,
and it showed. Skrein began taking classes in various martial arts disciplines as he
prepared for both The Transporter Refueled and his role as Ajax in Deadpool, but
even he acknowledged that he was way behind many of his peers in that department. He told the BBC,
"I'm very respectful and realize I'm not going to
be able to do things meant for 10 or 20 years of training."
The action in The Transporter Refueled was ultimately limited by the new star's
fledgling abilities. Ed Skrein's one and only outing as Frank Martin was a commercial and
critical flop that left the Luc Besson -produced franchise dead in the water.
Rooney Mara took on the role of androgynous computer hacker Lisbeth Salander starring
opposite Daniel Craig in 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. When the 2018 sequel The Girl
in the Spider's Web was announced, fans of David Fincher's critically acclaimed first film were a
little disappointed that both Mara and Craig had been recast, and so was Mara. She told Yahoo!,
"I was hopeful to come back, but they decided to do a different
thing. It was always a character I wanted to revisit, but that's not what happened."
Sverrir Gudnason replaced Daniel Craig, while Claire Foy stepped into the pale,
pierced skin of Salander. Unfortunately, she didn't look comfortable in it. At the time,
she was receiving acclaim for her turn as the young Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown,
but Foy couldn't pull off Salander's cold eccentricities with the same poise
as her predecessor. Critics were by and large unimpressed with her version of the goth hacker,
with many questioning why she was chosen for the part. The Observer's Wendy Ide said,
"Much as I admire her, Foy is miscast here. She’s just too empathetic for a
role that requires an almost reptilian lack of emotion."
IndieWire's senior film critic David Ehrlich called her both "terrible [and] terribly miscast."
The first RoboCop stars Peter Weller as the titular cyborg. He roams a dystopian crime-ridden
version of Detroit, mercilessly dealing with lawbreakers. Weller reprised the role in RoboCop
2 but turned down the chance to play him again in a third movie. Producers needed a replacement,
and their hearts were apparently set on a little-known actor named Robert John Burke.
In a 2015 interview, Burke said,
"In God's great earth they thought I was the only actor who could do it,
I don't know why. I think physically I poked like Peter Weller, and I had also had
extensive karate training, pantomime training, and body training, and I fit the suit."
Unsurprisingly, handing the lead role over to the relatively inexperienced Burke just because
he kind of resembled Weller didn't work out very well. He may have looked like him in the suit,
but as the New York Times said in its review of the box office bomb,
"[Burke is] lacking his forerunner's tongue-in-cheek glint of authoritarian machismo."
"You have the right to an attorney"
"What is thiiiiiis?"
From his delivery to the way he moved, Burke just wasn't as convincing as RoboCop.
As Empire noted, he appeared to be "a lot less comfortable with the hardware."
1988's Big is often cited as Tom Hanks' breakout movie, but he actually announced
himself as a potential star some four years earlier in Ron Howard's fantasy rom-com
Splash. Hanks plays Allen Bauer, a young man who returns to the spot of what he believes
was a near-death hallucination to discover that the woman he saw in the water the day he almost
drowned is indeed real. Allen falls for mermaid Madison and ditches his life on land to live
under the sea with her in a goofy yet undeniably feel-good ending. It's a beloved movie,
though the same cannot be said about the obscure, made-for-TV sequel, Splash, Too.
Helmed by writer, director, and actor Greg Antonacci, the highly forgettable and completely
unnecessary Splash, Too brought Allen and Madison back to dry land, totally ignoring
the fact that the government wanted to lock her up in a lab in the previous installment.
Todd Waring took over as Allen Bauer, but despite his best efforts, he lacked the everyman charm and
comedic timing that was abundant in Hanks. Film Fad said in its review of the sequel,
"The less said about the actors replacing Tom Hanks and John Candy the better."
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