... and Jerry Mathers as... The Torgo. (uh, what?? no)

One aspect of crazy movie chatter at the water cooler that I think we’ve been missing out on is…

What is the craziest ‘nearly cast in this role’ that you can think of, and that you can NOT imagine working? (To be valid, this isn’t fantasy casting… who was legit considered for a role???)

par ex: Carrie, Harrison, and Mark in Star Wars. Excellent, we love them.
Would we have loved Terri Nunn, Christopher Walken, and William Katt as much? Or others who were (in)famously up for those roles?

Especially cool of course would be to link roles to MST3K experiments. Now, that might be a taller order, it might not, but this is a MST3K forum, and the gauntlet is dropped with a ‘meh, whatevs’ at your feet.

Have at, Hamdingers!

(for those who don’t want to do the math, Mathers was 18 in '66, John Reynolds was 25)

2 Likes

If you can believe it, Squirm nearly gave us Kim Basinger as Geri, Martin Sheen as Mick, and Sylvester Stallone as Roger.

Can you imagine THAT version of the movie?

2 Likes

Wasn’t Will Smith in consideration for one of the roles in The Matrix? I like him, but I don’t think he’d be a good fit even if he had signed up for the role.

3 Likes

ok…

uh…

you know…

you uh-

could have waited for a few responses…

you know, before dropping that on me…

I think I’ll just go and have a little lie down somewhere…

4 Likes

So who would replace Zdarsky?

SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER

1 Like

Zdhutch

4 Likes

starsky and hutch huggy GIF

1 Like

Billy Idol was going to play the T-1000 in Terminator 2 until he was hospitalized in a motorcycle accident. He certainly would have made for a great screen presence, but in exchange we got three decades and counting of great Robert Patrick performances built off that role.

3 Likes

I think.my favorite was Clint Eastwood being supposedly tapped to play Two-Face in the Adam West (star of Zombie Nightmare) Batman series.

3 Likes

Hm, that might explain how Jean Sullivan (Geri’s mom) ended up in that movie. She was a legitimate stage and screen actress and I always wondered how she ended up there.

Maybe they told her they had these other actors on tap and then it was too late to back out.

2 Likes

Tom Selleck was almost Indiana Jones.

2 Likes

James Cagney was almost Robin Hood instead of Errol Flynn.

4 Likes

Frank Sinatra was almost Dirty Harry Callahan.

2 Likes

Given all the colorful backstories we hear about MSTed movies, that “too late to back out” story for a legit talent seems quite plausible.

1 Like

I know that it’s been covered in one of Patton Oswalt’s standup acts, but… Nick Nolte as Han Solo?

Yeah, that would have been an experience.

3 Likes

In the wake of Idol’s accident, Michael Biehn also was considered for the part.

2 Likes

I can top that- Frank Sinatra was almost in Die Hard instead of Bruce Willis.

4 Likes

Sort of. The novel that Die Hard was loosely based on was a sequel to another, which had been adapted to a film in 1968 with Sinatra playing the role, so he technically had to refuse to play McClane before anyone else could be considered. But he immediately did, since he never had any intention of doing it.

4 Likes

For another MST film, Kim Basinger and Anjelica Huston were offered the role of the mother in Mac and Me. They both shot it down for obvious reasons.

3 Likes