SpandexFan
07-29-2009, 03:57 PM
INSPIRED BY THIS THREAD WHICH ONLY DEALT WITH COMIC BOOK FILM FRANCHISES: http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=327584
#10 George Lazenby, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton as James Bond
http://www.product-reviews.net/wp-content/userimages/2007/09/your-favorite-bond-daniel-craig-sean-connery-roger-moore-pierce-brosnan.jpg
James Bond is known as a franchise that has enjoyed great success with casting changes to its lead role. Even though Roger Moore was well-received by audiences, enough so that he contributed several films to the James Bond franchise, there were still people who never enjoyed his "lighter" version of the character made famous by Sean Connery. But perhaps the two most awkward casting changes in Bond history belong to George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton, both of whom had the shortest stints in the lead role.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/raplvZFysjU&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/raplvZFysjU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Lazenby is probably the only Bond to more closely resemble Connery's looks and large physical presence (Lazenby was also a skilled martial artist), but at the time, audiences and critics were torn on his acting skills as the new Bond. His only Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, was one of the biggest hits of the year and ensured future Bond films with Lazenby but in a recurring theme on this list, Lazenby decided to turn down the next film, and continue with his own Bond-less acting career which never quite materialized. Maybe his biggest contribution though was allowing audiences the chance to accept that other actors would eventually wear the tuxedo and drive the Aston Martin.
Timothy Dalton started his short two film career as James Bond in 1987 with The Living Daylights. With Dalton, the James Bond Franchise attempted to create a more gritty, darker James Bond, and turn away from the lighter portrayal by Roger Moore which had run its course. Audiences never accepted this and Dalton's films are near the bottom of the list in total box office gross for a Bond film. While originally planned, a third Bond film with Dalton never reached production, and the studio instead went with Pierce Brosnan who helped recapture box office success. To Dalton and the production team's credit though, they did have it right, just not the right tools, because Roger Craig would eventually complete the vision of a more brutal modern-day spy as James Bond and give the franchise new life.
#9 The Oracle and Tank
http://www.filmdope.com/Gallery/ActorsC/40585-24459.gif
So maybe I picked this one because I'm still miffed at how awful those Matrix sequels were, and it's not the fault of Warner Brothers that the original Oracle actress, Gloria Foster, passed away before completion of the Matrix sequels. It might be the fault of the movie studio however that they couldn't reach an agreement with Marcus Chong to reprise the role of Tank -- the famous pilot on Morpheus' ship -- who allegedly was asking for too much money. The fact is that any mega-budget sci-fi franchise deals with this dilemma, but small roles do matter in sci-fi franchises. Star Trek never replaced Walter Keonig as Chekov and Star Wars never replaced Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian. More consistency with casting wouldn't have saved The Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions, but it certainly would have helped what appeared to most audiences as a disjointed storyline that didn't have much correlation with the exciting experience in the first Matrix film.
#8 Ben Affleck and Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan
http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/7/2/7/5/19615727-19615728-slarge.jpg
So maybe it was the outdated theme of the Cold War that helped prematurely end Tom Clancy's franchise, but the Jack Ryan storyline was the only espionage franchise that ever had a chance to compete against James Bond, and at one time the future looked promising. When The Hunt for Red October was released, it was a box office smash and Alec Baldwin quickly established himself as one of the upcoming leading men in Hollywood. Don't blame the studios for this one though, because even though Baldwin was quickly earning a tag as one of the most "high maintenance" erratic actors in Hollywood, the studio still offered him a two-picture deal to reprise his role of Jack Ryan in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Baldwin, in one of the more questionable decisions in acting history, snubbed the studios and instead opted for a Broadway role in A Streetcar Named Desire. To further excuse the studio, they instead offered the role to Hollywood's biggest action star at the time, Harrison Ford, who coincidentally had turned down the original role of Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October because he wanted to lose his tag as an action hero. Years later, when beginning production on The Sum of All Fears, the Jack Ryan Franchise was again snubbed by its leading actor, this time Harrison Ford, who was quoted in a Playboy interview:
"No. I hated the script. Paramount said commit to the development of this and we'll write another script for you. I had never made that kind of long-term commitment, and I said, Bye-bye. I just thought the story was dated and unworkable. The central event of the movie is the killing of thousands of people at the Super Bowl. How do you f*ing recover from that? Emotionally, how do you care about one character when thousands have been killed? I'm sure that they changed it and made a good movie, but I just didn't want to go through that."
The 4th installment in the franchise was placed in an even more awkward position when it instead opted for a younger reboot of Jack Ryan with Ben Affleck, and also decided to take out the original story of Islamic terrorists bombing the Super Bowl because it considered this highly unlikely and replaced them with Neo-Nazis. Of course, in one of the all-time "egg on your face" moments, 9/11 occured during production. All of these movies enjoyed financial success but its one of the great "could have been" franchises in big budget film history.
#7 Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl and Christian Bale as John Connor
http://www.firstshowing.net/img/john-connor-terminator-evo.jpg
Ask movie audiences who the hero is of The Terminator franchise and 99% will probably tell you Arnold Schwarzenegger. The other 1% might say its the role played by Linda Hamilton. But when the decision was made to transform Terminator into a franchise, a new character entered the equation - John Connor. This is the man who would lead the resistance against the machines and become the crux of all future storylines. Somehow, it never quite materialized the way audiences imagined. In a role that worked, but left audiences with the same dirty feeling they had after watching a young snot-nosed Darth Vader in The Phantom Menace, Edward Furlong played the annoying but smart young punk version of John Connor.
When making Terminator 3 several years later, the production crew didn't feel Furlong had the right stuff to play an older John Connor. At the time, Furlong was doing his best to imitate other former Hollywood child stars in party habits. But it didn't help that they picked an actor Nick Stahl to play John Connor, who gave audiences an impression of a skinny androgynous kid rather than a young man who knows he will one day lead humanity against the machines. When Hollywood finally did pick a lead who audiences could accept as THE John Connor in Christian Bale, it failed to impress most critics who thought his talents didn't match the legend, summed up in this L.A .Times critic piece:
"Bale's strengths do not serve him, or the movie, as well here and when the story starts to crumble around Bale, Worthington is there to pick up the pieces."
Whether by poor casting or poor writing, John Connor never quite lived up to the standards envisioned in this franchise.
#6 Michael Gambon as Dumbledore
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2009/7/7/1246973461725/Harry-Potters-Dumbledore--006.jpg
So now we start to get to the top of the list. Casting decisions that still make for intense nerd wars on message boards all over the internet. There is perhaps no character above the age of 18 in the Harry Potter books who is more loved that Dumbledore. His death in the book and movie was a sad event for all J.K. Rowling fans, and angered quite a few. When the original Harry Potter movies were cast, the role of Dumbledore was given to none other than the legendary actor Richard Harris, who did such a remarkable job as the grand wizard, that he threatened to mimic Sir Alec Guinness's distinction as a classic English actor throughout the decades who would instead forever be remembered for his end-of-career performance in a blockbuster movie franchise. Harris even expressed as much saying:
"Because, you see, I don't just want to be remembered for being in those bloody films, and I'm afraid that's what going to happen to me."
After two films, the highly skilled actor passed away, and Sir Michael Gambon, an equally praised acting talent, was given the part. While some fans thought Gambon's version was remarkable, an equal amount thought he lacked the warmth and paternal instincts that Dumbledore was famous for in the books. Gambon chose a more quirky and distant wizard persona for his Dumbledore. Gambon also seemed to lack some of the natural presence that Harris possessed at an elderly age, as demonstrated by Harris' role as the Emperor of Rome in the film Gladiator.
Check out this Youtube fan film that attempts to show what Goblet of Fire would have been like with Richard Harris as Dumbledore:
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/304ZYrWPx9w&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/304ZYrWPx9w&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
#5 George Hamilton as the Corleone Family Attorney
http://abaltimoreblock.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/george-hamilton.jpg
The Godfather Franchise has proven that you don't need CGI or comedy to make sequels, and while Francis Ford Coppola didn't produce a dud for his third outing, its merits are as controversial as his best friend George Lucas' sequel attempts. Many just don't feel the third film lived up to the reputation of the first two, and one of the biggest reasons, and even admitted by Coppola, is the vacuum created by the absence of Robert Duvall as the family's legal advisor. According to the director's commentary on the DVD, Duvall wanted a salary on par with Al Pacino and the studio felt he was asking too much, but Duvall later confessed he felt the divide between his and Pacino's salary was too insulting. So while the role of Tom Hagen had originally been written into the third film, it was ripped out, and the role of legal advisor was given to tanning products poster boy George Hamilton. At least they didn't try to pass him off as Tom Hagen, nor as anything close to the mafia position of consigliere. He was just a bland corporate attorney who spent more time in the background than talking, and an attempt to save some of the storylines that needed someone as the family attorney.
#4 Tommy Morrison as Rocky's Opponent
http://www.randomhype.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/rocky-v.jpg
How hard is it to make a good Rocky film? After the first film, the object was no longer to earn Academy Award nominations, but to give Rocky a compelling opponent who made for some good fights and audience hoorahs. Rocky sequels read like a classic list of bad actors with charisma that audiences love to root against. Dolph Lundren as Ivan Drago, Mr. T as Clubber Lang, and so on... So who better for the fifth Rocky film than a current boxer, Tommy Morrison? Yeah, maybe not. This film was so bad that even Sylvester Stallone admits he chooses to ignore it and its the main reason why he came back to make the sixth and final film, Rocky Balboa. Admittedly, the change in formula to return Rocky back to his roots as a loser in Philly made many viewers hate it, but Tommy Morrison just didn't have that same "bad guy" feel to him that previous opponents exhibited. As a matter of fact, the actor playing a quasi-Don King was someone we loved to hate even more.
#3 George Clooney as Batman
http://www.virginmedia.com/images/batman-and-robin-sequels-431.jpg
When Val Kilmer took over the reigns of The Dark Knight in Batman Forever and didn't negate much of the Batman success, it looked to Hollywood like any actor could successfully put on the cowl and pull off the role of one of comic book history's leading superheroes. It especially looked that way to director Joel Schumacher who allegedly didn't like working with Kilmer and basically fired him from the role. Schumacher also thought that a less serious version of Batman was needed. Oops. Schumacher as director, Schwarzenegger as Freeze, Silverstone as Batgirl, the new colorful art direction, and a host of other bad decisions are to blame as much as Clooney, but the bottomline is this film effectively became the "Superman IV" of the once strong Batman franchise.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/r6epsGrcuTs&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/r6epsGrcuTs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
#2 Kate Bosworth & Brandon Routh as Lois & Clark
http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/medias/nmedia/18/35/78/09/18457364.jpg
When the decision was made to reboot Superman, there were a lot of promising decisions made. An experienced comic director was brought in. John Williams' classic theme was back. The movie was given one of the biggest budgets in film history. What could go wrong? Maybe the new cast? As described by a reviewer at Rotten Tomatoes:
A little secret about Superman: Any guy, provided that he looks like a black-haired Adonis, can play the superhero. So the real deal here is to find someone who can play Clark Kent. One of the fun things about Reeve is the way he made Clark goofy, not as though he were really goofy but rather as though Superman were quietly enjoying the spectacle of others underestimating him. Lois (Margot Kidder) felt sorry for him, and that seemed to amuse him, too. He was like Zorro, a man so sure of his own essence that he didn't mind people thinking less of him.
But as played by Brandon Routh in "Superman Returns," Clark Kent is goofy because he really is a dork. He's a shy guy. He's not shy in his Superman incarnation, but that's only because Superman is his comfort zone. As Clark, he falls apart every time he's around Lois. This isn't funny, and it becomes downright uncomfortable when Lois treats him with thinly veiled contempt. At one point, Clark refers to their "relationship," and she throws the word back in his face, as though he were a complete idiot.
"Superman Returns" was directed by Bryan Singer ("X-Men"), who is attuned to the action potential of the story, but his movie has no warmth, and Bosworth is a big part of the problem. It's a heck of a thing to say that the intricacies of playing Lois Lane are outside an actress' sphere, but whatever those intricacies are, they elude Bosworth, possibly because she's simply too young for the role. She was 22 at the time of filming, and her idea of playing a 30-year-old professional woman was to act confrontational and aggrieved and never smile. This is a younger person's naive conception of strength, the notion that the path to success is to behave as if the whole world were trying to pick you up in a bar and you're not having it.
There you have it in a nutshell. There might have been more of a dynamic between Lois & Clark on the TV series of the same name with B-list actors Dean Cain and Terri Hatcher, but one thing is for sure...we never saw this again:
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#1 Hayden Christensen and Jake Lloyd as Darth Vader
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1960000/images/_1960624_anakin.jpg
Comedian Patton Oswalt probably best sums up the audience reaction to a young Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker:
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LDCjIjsZp_Y&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LDCjIjsZp_Y&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
But if that wasn't enough, George Lucas had to take it one step further and cast the sniveling crying Hayden Christensen as the next young addition of one of the most iconic villains in movie history. Yes, our memories of Darth Vader will now forever be scarred because everytime we watch that famous scene with James Earl Jones voicing "I find your lack of faith disturbing" we'll always simultaneously think of Hayden Christensen whining to Natalie Portman's character about how things "just aren't fair." Waaaaa. Nuff said.
#10 George Lazenby, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton as James Bond
http://www.product-reviews.net/wp-content/userimages/2007/09/your-favorite-bond-daniel-craig-sean-connery-roger-moore-pierce-brosnan.jpg
James Bond is known as a franchise that has enjoyed great success with casting changes to its lead role. Even though Roger Moore was well-received by audiences, enough so that he contributed several films to the James Bond franchise, there were still people who never enjoyed his "lighter" version of the character made famous by Sean Connery. But perhaps the two most awkward casting changes in Bond history belong to George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton, both of whom had the shortest stints in the lead role.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/raplvZFysjU&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/raplvZFysjU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Lazenby is probably the only Bond to more closely resemble Connery's looks and large physical presence (Lazenby was also a skilled martial artist), but at the time, audiences and critics were torn on his acting skills as the new Bond. His only Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, was one of the biggest hits of the year and ensured future Bond films with Lazenby but in a recurring theme on this list, Lazenby decided to turn down the next film, and continue with his own Bond-less acting career which never quite materialized. Maybe his biggest contribution though was allowing audiences the chance to accept that other actors would eventually wear the tuxedo and drive the Aston Martin.
Timothy Dalton started his short two film career as James Bond in 1987 with The Living Daylights. With Dalton, the James Bond Franchise attempted to create a more gritty, darker James Bond, and turn away from the lighter portrayal by Roger Moore which had run its course. Audiences never accepted this and Dalton's films are near the bottom of the list in total box office gross for a Bond film. While originally planned, a third Bond film with Dalton never reached production, and the studio instead went with Pierce Brosnan who helped recapture box office success. To Dalton and the production team's credit though, they did have it right, just not the right tools, because Roger Craig would eventually complete the vision of a more brutal modern-day spy as James Bond and give the franchise new life.
#9 The Oracle and Tank
http://www.filmdope.com/Gallery/ActorsC/40585-24459.gif
So maybe I picked this one because I'm still miffed at how awful those Matrix sequels were, and it's not the fault of Warner Brothers that the original Oracle actress, Gloria Foster, passed away before completion of the Matrix sequels. It might be the fault of the movie studio however that they couldn't reach an agreement with Marcus Chong to reprise the role of Tank -- the famous pilot on Morpheus' ship -- who allegedly was asking for too much money. The fact is that any mega-budget sci-fi franchise deals with this dilemma, but small roles do matter in sci-fi franchises. Star Trek never replaced Walter Keonig as Chekov and Star Wars never replaced Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian. More consistency with casting wouldn't have saved The Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions, but it certainly would have helped what appeared to most audiences as a disjointed storyline that didn't have much correlation with the exciting experience in the first Matrix film.
#8 Ben Affleck and Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan
http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/7/2/7/5/19615727-19615728-slarge.jpg
So maybe it was the outdated theme of the Cold War that helped prematurely end Tom Clancy's franchise, but the Jack Ryan storyline was the only espionage franchise that ever had a chance to compete against James Bond, and at one time the future looked promising. When The Hunt for Red October was released, it was a box office smash and Alec Baldwin quickly established himself as one of the upcoming leading men in Hollywood. Don't blame the studios for this one though, because even though Baldwin was quickly earning a tag as one of the most "high maintenance" erratic actors in Hollywood, the studio still offered him a two-picture deal to reprise his role of Jack Ryan in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Baldwin, in one of the more questionable decisions in acting history, snubbed the studios and instead opted for a Broadway role in A Streetcar Named Desire. To further excuse the studio, they instead offered the role to Hollywood's biggest action star at the time, Harrison Ford, who coincidentally had turned down the original role of Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October because he wanted to lose his tag as an action hero. Years later, when beginning production on The Sum of All Fears, the Jack Ryan Franchise was again snubbed by its leading actor, this time Harrison Ford, who was quoted in a Playboy interview:
"No. I hated the script. Paramount said commit to the development of this and we'll write another script for you. I had never made that kind of long-term commitment, and I said, Bye-bye. I just thought the story was dated and unworkable. The central event of the movie is the killing of thousands of people at the Super Bowl. How do you f*ing recover from that? Emotionally, how do you care about one character when thousands have been killed? I'm sure that they changed it and made a good movie, but I just didn't want to go through that."
The 4th installment in the franchise was placed in an even more awkward position when it instead opted for a younger reboot of Jack Ryan with Ben Affleck, and also decided to take out the original story of Islamic terrorists bombing the Super Bowl because it considered this highly unlikely and replaced them with Neo-Nazis. Of course, in one of the all-time "egg on your face" moments, 9/11 occured during production. All of these movies enjoyed financial success but its one of the great "could have been" franchises in big budget film history.
#7 Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl and Christian Bale as John Connor
http://www.firstshowing.net/img/john-connor-terminator-evo.jpg
Ask movie audiences who the hero is of The Terminator franchise and 99% will probably tell you Arnold Schwarzenegger. The other 1% might say its the role played by Linda Hamilton. But when the decision was made to transform Terminator into a franchise, a new character entered the equation - John Connor. This is the man who would lead the resistance against the machines and become the crux of all future storylines. Somehow, it never quite materialized the way audiences imagined. In a role that worked, but left audiences with the same dirty feeling they had after watching a young snot-nosed Darth Vader in The Phantom Menace, Edward Furlong played the annoying but smart young punk version of John Connor.
When making Terminator 3 several years later, the production crew didn't feel Furlong had the right stuff to play an older John Connor. At the time, Furlong was doing his best to imitate other former Hollywood child stars in party habits. But it didn't help that they picked an actor Nick Stahl to play John Connor, who gave audiences an impression of a skinny androgynous kid rather than a young man who knows he will one day lead humanity against the machines. When Hollywood finally did pick a lead who audiences could accept as THE John Connor in Christian Bale, it failed to impress most critics who thought his talents didn't match the legend, summed up in this L.A .Times critic piece:
"Bale's strengths do not serve him, or the movie, as well here and when the story starts to crumble around Bale, Worthington is there to pick up the pieces."
Whether by poor casting or poor writing, John Connor never quite lived up to the standards envisioned in this franchise.
#6 Michael Gambon as Dumbledore
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2009/7/7/1246973461725/Harry-Potters-Dumbledore--006.jpg
So now we start to get to the top of the list. Casting decisions that still make for intense nerd wars on message boards all over the internet. There is perhaps no character above the age of 18 in the Harry Potter books who is more loved that Dumbledore. His death in the book and movie was a sad event for all J.K. Rowling fans, and angered quite a few. When the original Harry Potter movies were cast, the role of Dumbledore was given to none other than the legendary actor Richard Harris, who did such a remarkable job as the grand wizard, that he threatened to mimic Sir Alec Guinness's distinction as a classic English actor throughout the decades who would instead forever be remembered for his end-of-career performance in a blockbuster movie franchise. Harris even expressed as much saying:
"Because, you see, I don't just want to be remembered for being in those bloody films, and I'm afraid that's what going to happen to me."
After two films, the highly skilled actor passed away, and Sir Michael Gambon, an equally praised acting talent, was given the part. While some fans thought Gambon's version was remarkable, an equal amount thought he lacked the warmth and paternal instincts that Dumbledore was famous for in the books. Gambon chose a more quirky and distant wizard persona for his Dumbledore. Gambon also seemed to lack some of the natural presence that Harris possessed at an elderly age, as demonstrated by Harris' role as the Emperor of Rome in the film Gladiator.
Check out this Youtube fan film that attempts to show what Goblet of Fire would have been like with Richard Harris as Dumbledore:
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/304ZYrWPx9w&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/304ZYrWPx9w&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
#5 George Hamilton as the Corleone Family Attorney
http://abaltimoreblock.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/george-hamilton.jpg
The Godfather Franchise has proven that you don't need CGI or comedy to make sequels, and while Francis Ford Coppola didn't produce a dud for his third outing, its merits are as controversial as his best friend George Lucas' sequel attempts. Many just don't feel the third film lived up to the reputation of the first two, and one of the biggest reasons, and even admitted by Coppola, is the vacuum created by the absence of Robert Duvall as the family's legal advisor. According to the director's commentary on the DVD, Duvall wanted a salary on par with Al Pacino and the studio felt he was asking too much, but Duvall later confessed he felt the divide between his and Pacino's salary was too insulting. So while the role of Tom Hagen had originally been written into the third film, it was ripped out, and the role of legal advisor was given to tanning products poster boy George Hamilton. At least they didn't try to pass him off as Tom Hagen, nor as anything close to the mafia position of consigliere. He was just a bland corporate attorney who spent more time in the background than talking, and an attempt to save some of the storylines that needed someone as the family attorney.
#4 Tommy Morrison as Rocky's Opponent
http://www.randomhype.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/rocky-v.jpg
How hard is it to make a good Rocky film? After the first film, the object was no longer to earn Academy Award nominations, but to give Rocky a compelling opponent who made for some good fights and audience hoorahs. Rocky sequels read like a classic list of bad actors with charisma that audiences love to root against. Dolph Lundren as Ivan Drago, Mr. T as Clubber Lang, and so on... So who better for the fifth Rocky film than a current boxer, Tommy Morrison? Yeah, maybe not. This film was so bad that even Sylvester Stallone admits he chooses to ignore it and its the main reason why he came back to make the sixth and final film, Rocky Balboa. Admittedly, the change in formula to return Rocky back to his roots as a loser in Philly made many viewers hate it, but Tommy Morrison just didn't have that same "bad guy" feel to him that previous opponents exhibited. As a matter of fact, the actor playing a quasi-Don King was someone we loved to hate even more.
#3 George Clooney as Batman
http://www.virginmedia.com/images/batman-and-robin-sequels-431.jpg
When Val Kilmer took over the reigns of The Dark Knight in Batman Forever and didn't negate much of the Batman success, it looked to Hollywood like any actor could successfully put on the cowl and pull off the role of one of comic book history's leading superheroes. It especially looked that way to director Joel Schumacher who allegedly didn't like working with Kilmer and basically fired him from the role. Schumacher also thought that a less serious version of Batman was needed. Oops. Schumacher as director, Schwarzenegger as Freeze, Silverstone as Batgirl, the new colorful art direction, and a host of other bad decisions are to blame as much as Clooney, but the bottomline is this film effectively became the "Superman IV" of the once strong Batman franchise.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/r6epsGrcuTs&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/r6epsGrcuTs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
#2 Kate Bosworth & Brandon Routh as Lois & Clark
http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/medias/nmedia/18/35/78/09/18457364.jpg
When the decision was made to reboot Superman, there were a lot of promising decisions made. An experienced comic director was brought in. John Williams' classic theme was back. The movie was given one of the biggest budgets in film history. What could go wrong? Maybe the new cast? As described by a reviewer at Rotten Tomatoes:
A little secret about Superman: Any guy, provided that he looks like a black-haired Adonis, can play the superhero. So the real deal here is to find someone who can play Clark Kent. One of the fun things about Reeve is the way he made Clark goofy, not as though he were really goofy but rather as though Superman were quietly enjoying the spectacle of others underestimating him. Lois (Margot Kidder) felt sorry for him, and that seemed to amuse him, too. He was like Zorro, a man so sure of his own essence that he didn't mind people thinking less of him.
But as played by Brandon Routh in "Superman Returns," Clark Kent is goofy because he really is a dork. He's a shy guy. He's not shy in his Superman incarnation, but that's only because Superman is his comfort zone. As Clark, he falls apart every time he's around Lois. This isn't funny, and it becomes downright uncomfortable when Lois treats him with thinly veiled contempt. At one point, Clark refers to their "relationship," and she throws the word back in his face, as though he were a complete idiot.
"Superman Returns" was directed by Bryan Singer ("X-Men"), who is attuned to the action potential of the story, but his movie has no warmth, and Bosworth is a big part of the problem. It's a heck of a thing to say that the intricacies of playing Lois Lane are outside an actress' sphere, but whatever those intricacies are, they elude Bosworth, possibly because she's simply too young for the role. She was 22 at the time of filming, and her idea of playing a 30-year-old professional woman was to act confrontational and aggrieved and never smile. This is a younger person's naive conception of strength, the notion that the path to success is to behave as if the whole world were trying to pick you up in a bar and you're not having it.
There you have it in a nutshell. There might have been more of a dynamic between Lois & Clark on the TV series of the same name with B-list actors Dean Cain and Terri Hatcher, but one thing is for sure...we never saw this again:
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#1 Hayden Christensen and Jake Lloyd as Darth Vader
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1960000/images/_1960624_anakin.jpg
Comedian Patton Oswalt probably best sums up the audience reaction to a young Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker:
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But if that wasn't enough, George Lucas had to take it one step further and cast the sniveling crying Hayden Christensen as the next young addition of one of the most iconic villains in movie history. Yes, our memories of Darth Vader will now forever be scarred because everytime we watch that famous scene with James Earl Jones voicing "I find your lack of faith disturbing" we'll always simultaneously think of Hayden Christensen whining to Natalie Portman's character about how things "just aren't fair." Waaaaa. Nuff said.