Casting a key role can be critical to a film's success, particularly when it comes to characters
that have been deeply explored before.
Unfortunately, in the cases of these films and TV features, the casting decisions were
downright awful.
The first look at Joseph Fiennes in the role of Michael Jackson for an episode of Urban
Myths led to immediate backlash.
It was another groan-worthy installment of the Hollywood whitewashing tradition that
seemed like blatant disrespect towards the former King of Pop.
Following the backlash, the network decided to pull the episode, writing,
"This decision was taken in light of the concerns expressed by Michael Jackson's immediate family.
We set out to take a light-hearted look at reportedly true events [and] never intended
to cause any offence.
Joseph Fiennes fully supports our decision."
Keanu Reeves has quite a few performances to his name that just make you say,
"Whoa."
The one that takes the cake, though, is his supporting role as Jonathan Harker in Bram
Stoker's Dracula.
Despite the fact that the film won three Oscars for its costuming, sound effects, and makeup
crews, Reeves' portrayal was marred by a terrible British accent and over-the-top reactions.
"Doctor, you must understand.
I doubted everything, even my mind."
Director Francis Ford Coppola kindly remarked that Reeves tried hard when it came to speaking
with an English affectation, but that so much effort was ultimately the issue with his portrayal,
saying,
"He wanted to do it perfectly and in trying to do it perfectly it came off as stilted."
M. Night Shyamalan was on a real cold streak by the time he decided to helm a live-action
adaptation of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Unfortunately, the movie flopped both critically and at the box office.
Part of the blame for the box office bomb has to go to Shyamalan casting white actors,
such as Jackson Rathbone and Nicola Peltz, in Asian roles.
As a result of his role-casting decisions, the film was met with wide "racebending" protests
that called into question why the filmmaker didn't opt for a more culturally representative
set of actors.
Arguably the biggest problem in Spider-Man 3 is the character of Eddie Brock, a.k.a.
Venom.
When the movie was first announced, fans were psyched to see who Sony would cast for the
role of the popular Spider-Man villain, but somehow Topher Grace nabbed the role.
"Look, I wanna kill the spider, you wanna kill the spider.
Together, he doesn't stand a chance.
Interested?"
In the comics, Eddie Brock is a physically imposing guy; Topher Grace, on the other hand,
isn't exactly Mr. Universe.
Even the actor himself was baffled when he was offered the gig.
Speaking on an episode of the Inside of You podcast, Grace said he was a huge fan of the
character, and sees Tom Hardy's portrayal as a more accurate version.
"I was surprised and a little bit like 'huh' when they wanted me to play it, so when I
look at it now, at the movie that's coming out, I go, 'That's the guy.'"
In Prometheus, Guy Pearce plays Peter Weyland, the ancient and affluent CEO of the villainous
Weyland Corporation.
Weyland is hoping to find something out in space that will help him beat death.
One look at his face and we can see why.
The horrible prosthetics are incredibly distracting, and despite his acting chops, Pearce is never
convincing as an old man.
Pearce later explained there was in fact supposed to be a dream sequence showing Weyland as
a younger man, which was the sole reason he was cast instead of an elderly actor.
Director Ridley Scott decided to scrap the scene and keep Pearce and his unsightly prosthetics
anyway.
When it comes to directing, M. Night Shyamalan either strikes out hard or knocks the ball
out of the park.
But when it comes to Shyamalan's acting, the only times his performances work are when
he relegates himself to a Hitchcock-style cameo.
When he actually tries to act, you wish he'd spend all his time behind the camera.
That's especially true in Lady in the Water.
Shyamalan's character, Vick Ran, is crucial to the plot.
And unfortunately, he's stiff and dry, a cardboard cutout come to life.
The whole thing is especially embarrassing because Shyamalan, who writes his own screenplays,
plays an author who is writing a book so important that it's going to change the course of human
events.
What an ego.
Working with director Bong Joon-ho, Jake Gyllenhaal starred as Dr. Johnny Wilcox in the 2017 film
Okja.
The story follows a young Korean girl named Mija as she tries to rescue her best friend,
a genetically modified super pig named Okja, from an all-powerful American corporation
that wants to turn her into pork chops.
And in her quest to rescue Okja, Mija runs across Dr. Johnny, a shrill TV host who spends
his time screaming, sobbing, and acting like a sadist.
While Dr. Johnny could've been an interesting character and a fun bad guy, Gyllenhaal's
instincts here are just all wrong.
He hits the highest decibel possible with every single line.
"She is an amazing little lady, and she happens to be the brain behind this entire super-pig
project!"
He squeals and whines, and there's never a moment where we see Dr. Johnny as anything
other than a clown.
Bong Joon-ho movies generally excel at giving graceful and powerful moments to oddball characters,
but Gyllenhaal is so loud and so overwhelming that not even his awesome mustache can make
for those over-the-top antics.
In the year 2017, you'd think Hollywood would finally realize that casting culturally appropriate
actors is a good idea.
But evidently, the folks at Lionsgate missed the memo when casting their Hellboy reboot.
Everybody was happy when David Harbour signed up to play the big red half-demon, but the
internet lost its collective mind when Ed Skrein was tapped to star as Major Ben Daimio.
If you're not familiar with Hellboy lore, Ben Daimio is a member of the BPRD and a U.S.
Marine who came back to life after a rescue mission gone wrong.
He's also Japanese-American.
Ed Skrein of Deadpool fame, on the other hand, is very much a white dude.
So naturally, some people were pretty upset about the news, and the online furor prompted
Skrein to step down from the part.
He described his decision to leave the project as "the right thing to do and the only thing
to do," and Lionsgate rectified their mistake by recasting Daimio with Daniel Dae Kim.
Granted, Kim is Korean-American and not Japanese, but that's still better than casting a white
guy best known for playing villains with British accents.
"My welcome speech used to be full of euphemisms like 'this may hurt a little' and 'this may
cause you some discomfort.'"
Directed by David Ayer, Suicide Squad is maybe the most controversial DCEU movie to date.
Maybe that's because it underwent some major reshoots, or maybe it's because there were
just far too many characters in one film.
In fact, there were so many bad guys running around that one particular villain got very
little time in the spotlight: the Joker.
Jared Leto isn't a horrible Joker, but he doesn't really add anything to the role either.
The Clown Prince of Crime is the most iconic villain in comic book history, and you really
need a special actor to bring him to life.
But Leto relies too much on his flashy grill and psycho eccentricities.
He snarls and grimaces and does a kooky laugh, but you never feel the monster brimming under
all that makeup.
"I am not someone who is loved.
I'm an idea.
A state of mind."
On August 21st, 2015, three American friends stopped a heavily armed psycho on a train
heading from Amsterdam to Paris.
The friends were Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler, and together they took
the alleged terrorist down and saved everyone on the train.
Their story of bravery made quite an impression on director Clint Eastwood, who turned the
story into a motion picture.
Only instead of hiring professional actors to play the three leads, he decided to cast
the actual guys who were aboard the train that fateful day.
Obviously, these three men were incredibly courageous, but being a real-life hero doesn't
mean you can play one.
When The 15:17 to Paris pulled into movie theaters, critics paid their respects to the
trio's heroism but had to admit that none of these dudes were going to be the next Daniel
Day-Lewis.
It was a bold move by Eastwood to give these guys a chance at movie stardom, but by the
end of the film, it's very apparent why big-time actors make the big bucks.
Over 30 years after getting turned into a big game trophy in the original, Shane Black
returned to the world of Predator in 2018.
Only this time, he was behind the camera and directing a cast that included Olivia Munn,
Jacob Tremblay, Sterling K. Brown, and Keegan-Michael Key.
In addition to those big names, Black hired one of his good friends for a small role.
Steven Wilder Striegel had known Black for years: In fact, he appeared in some of the
director's earlier films, like Iron Man 3 and The Nice Guys.
Striegel was to play an annoying jogger who hits on Olivia Munn's character in a brief
scene in The Predator.
And then this happened.
"A scene was taken out of the new Predator film after a last-minute revelation that one
of the actor's involved is a convicted sex offender."
When Munn discovered her co-star's background, she told 20th Century Fox, and the studio
cut Striegel's scene out of the movie.
Irish actor Colin Farrell has had a fair number of acclaim-worthy performances, but his eponymous
turn in Alexander was not one of them.
Not only has his casting been panned because he's not, you know, Greek, but he wasn't convincing
as the amoral emperor either.
Farrell, for his part, has since been able to laugh off the criticism, particularly when
it comes to his terrible bleach blonde locks.
He gave an interview on The Graham Norton Show in 2013 where he suggested some retroactive
changes :
"He should've been brunette.
For sure.
And maybe he shouldn't have had an Irish accent, only from the 7,000 reviews I read."
Even George Clooney knows that his casting as Bruce Wayne was all wrong, almost as wrong
as the entirety of 1997's Batman & Robin.
As Clooney recalled in a hilarious interview with The Graham Norton Show, he doesn't mind
apologizing for the role:
"I always apologize for Batman and Robin.
I thought at the time, 'This is going to be a very good career move.'
Um…
It wasn't."