A change of actor you couldn’t forgive. Terrence Howard to Don Cheadle, Jodi Foster to Julianne Moore, Rachel Weisz to Maria Bello, Sean Connery to George Lazenby? What swap swallowed it whole?
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Weisz to Bello is pretty heinous, and frankly the weakest part of an exceptionally weak film.
I think going back to Connery from Lazenby was a bad move, I get that George wanted to be a Beatle and not do another Bond, but going backwards is never the best choice, not that I’m looking at Doctor Who or anything.
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United Artists insisted on Connery. On Her Majesty (1969) underperformed badly and the powers determined righting the ship recasting the original 007 was how to go. Bond then wasn’t the tradition it is now. They stressed another flop would be the end. Diamonds (1971) bounced back and afforded EON and United a breath to recast the role to Moore and the rest is history.
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While I can’t argue about what happened, I still think it was a weak choice. While OHMSS didn’t break the bank like previous films it did make a healthy profit, and certainly they’d had kept going with Lazenby if he chose to stay, but like I say, he wanted to be cool 60’s guy and backed out of his 7 film deal.
Moving forward with another actor would have been the stronger move, and it’s not like they didn’t try, they even tried to get Moore.
Going back to Connery locked the Bond movies to it’s cliches, changing anything was forbidden, as the last time they changed anything it “failed”.
OHMSS is a weird film, it was the one that never got showed on TV when I was a kid, so it sort of feels like a tangentially related film, maybe that’s why I think of it as going back to Connery as a wasted opportunity?
It’s a banger of a film though, I sort of rediscovered it when I got the Blu-ray boxset and did a chronological re-watch, I even almost skipped it, I’m glad I didn’t, it’s an easy top 8 Bond movie for me.
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Then MGM, United Artists, EON, and the press digested the good not terrific numbers as a failure. Hollywood does that. Watch the Diamonds Are Forever (1971) documentary on the DVD. You and I see “a healthy profit” and they read missed opportunity given the likes of Goldfnger (1964), Thunderball (1965), and You Only Live Twice (1967). Weighed against those OHMSS (1969) went backward and people tuned out. In that mindset (and I’m not defending it), spending a $1 million to lure Connery to the part saved the series. We look at it now and spitball they overreacted but we don’t know. We live in a world where Bond survived and take it for granted. In the early 70s, Bond was Connery not 6 actors sharing the role. One might argue Connery returning following a second Bond started the trend.
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I was thinking that as they legally had to stop using Blofeld/Spectre, changing that AND lead in the next film would have been very damaging, Connery coming back made the loss of the villains (in a short pre-titles sequence) far less noticeable.
I was also thinking that Connery picked $1,250,000 as his payment because it seemed so crazy high, and now an actor probably wouldn’t read a script for that little money, hell Daniel Craig is (deservedly) getting $100,000,000+ for the 2 Knives Out sequels, and will have a back end deal too… No wonder they have to use magic accountancy on these films!
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Renner as Jason Bourne
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Renner wasn’t Bourne, he was a different character with a similar story.
Remember when Hollywood kept trying to make Jeremy Renner happen? IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN HOLLYWOOD!
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I sort of feel that way about Margot Robbie. Did I ask for a Margot Robbie? Do I need a Margot Robbie in my life?
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Was Terrence Howard to Don Cheadle really that Bad of a Recasting, I mean it was early enough in the franchise that it wasn’t that noticeable (well It was noticeable but it would have been more noticeable if they changed him later on)
When Doug Bradley left Hellraiser, that was honestly the clue that the franchise was really becoming a dumpster fire…
One that almost happened was that at one point Jake Gynathall (I think that’s how you spell it, bottom line, the guy who played mysterio in FFH) was at one point going to replace Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man 2…
(actually you could do another post about casts that almost happened, Like Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in Final Destination as Alex and Clear…)
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No offense to Maria Bello, but the dominant reason that The Mummy movies were fun to watch was because Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz had such great chemistry. They worked so well together that they kept the movies light and fun with serious moments. There was none of that in the third movie. The overall plot was definitely a lot weaker but honestly, I think that Rachel Weisz could have carried it through. A weak plot plus changing the lead actress? Nope. It’s no surprise that they couldn’t recover from that.
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It was close enough I got what he meant. Renner was a Bourne replacement as a different character. It was recasting but not as the same guy.
For me, Terrence Howard brought lightness, an inner life, and insightfulness I appreciated in the original Iron Man (2008). He felt like a complete person and not only a means for the plot to move forward. He meshed alongside Downey and Paltrow and the three were surface chipper and inside complex and that came across.
Don Cheadle didn’t quite fit next to what Robert and Gwyneth began previously. Don rebooted the character and he hadn’t deciphered the code by Iron Man 2 (2010) portraying a hard unknowable man who suddenly exploded into a comedian in the third act. He blows wherever Iron Man 2 wants him to absent the character dictating that on its own.
By Iron Man 3 (2013), Don found a path to the man. A refined version of the goofiness in Iron Man 2. This evolves in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019) into a total performance aided by his disability in Civil War and Don reaching a comfort he didn’t have starting out.
Even with that, Terrence Howard had the whole package to begin with replaced by a chap who needed to trial and error to get there though he did. Marvel always possessed a knack to pick the ideal person out of the gate. Here they had to rebound and it took a little time. There were reasons. One of the results was Rhodes became a work in progress compared to flawless casting everywhere else.
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Remember when Jeremy Renner released an album? That was pretty awful.
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I never understood why he was pushed so much. Did he save some producer’s life or something?
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Being in an unexpected best picture winner will do that for you.
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So in other words, You’d say That you’d rather they stuck with Terrence but that they at least made the change early enough to give Don more time to grow into the role?
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I’ll admit that I like Jeremy Renner. I enjoyed him in the movies I’ve seen.
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Winona Ryder being replaced by Sofia Coppola.
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Essentially. And they stayed by him and didn’t replace him when he struggled early on. Other studios wouldn’t have had the patience swapping the swap with Rhodes #3. Marvel let it ride and Don eventually matured in the part.
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