Best Superhero Movie Casting

[Robin91939]

I want to know/discuss who the best casting decision ever made was. Which character has been cast perfectly?

Now, I'm talking perfect casting. An actor who looks near identical to their comic book counterparts AND embodied the character in their performance to the best of their ability with what was given in their respective script.

So, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine (while played fantastically and near definitively by him) is not represented in this list. Neither is Michael Keaton's Batman for the same reason that neither man looks like the character they are portraying does in the comics, no matter how strong/iconic their performance.

So, this is the list I've compiled. It ranges from the inspired (Heath Ledger as The Joker) to the painfully obvious (Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury). Some characters have been cast perfectly multiple times. Superman, for example. Chris Reeve plays the perfect Silver Age Superman, while Henry Cavill is a spot-on Modern Age Superman. So, some characters may appear more than once.

X-Men Film Series:

Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier
Famke Janssen as Jean Grey
Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy/Beast
Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler
Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Chris Hemsworth as Thor
Tom Hiddleston as Loki
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
Hugo Weaving as Johann Schmidt/Red Skull
Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon
Sebastian Stan as The Winter Soldier
William Hurt as General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross
Terrence Howard as James Rhodes


Spider-man Film Series:

Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-man
Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy
J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson
Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius/Doc Ock
Thomas Hayden Church as Flint Marko/Sandman

Batman Film Series:

Danny DeVito as Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin
Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman
Liam Neeson as Ra’s al Ghul
Gary Oldman as James Gordon
Heath Ledger as The Joker

Superman Film Series:

Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman
Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman

Misc Comic Films:

Mark Strong as Sinestro
Chloë Grace Moretz as Mindy McCready/Hit-Girl
Sam Elliott as General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross
Ron Pearlman as Hellboy
Jackie Earle Haley as Walter Kovacs/Rorschach
Mickey Rourke as Marv

Feel free to add to this list in the comments, and argue/debate who should remain on this list and who should be removed from this list.

*Note** This is a list for superhero comic book films. So films like A History of Violence, Road To Perdition to not apply.
And again, this isn't purely based on acting performance. It is based on TOTAL embodiment of the character. From looks, mannerisms, to performance. Who captured the character the best that made you look at the screen and think it was the same character, ripped from the page?

-R

 

[agentorange]

Man Keaton and Hugh Jackman was definitely gonna be on my list lol. But since you said exclude them my top 10 casting is

1. Chris Hemsworth as Thor
2. Sam Jackson as Nick Fury
3. Wesley Snipes as Blade
4. Heath Ledger as Joker
5. RDJ as Iron Man
6. Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier
7. Bale as Batman
8. Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane
9. January Jones as Emma Frost
10. Danny Devito as Penguin

 

[Batmannerism]

Great thread!

Going to have to say that my top 10 perfect castings are...........

1. Patrick Stewart as Professor X, he not only looks exactly like the cb version, but he absolutely captures the warmth and humanity that Professor
X embodies.

2. Chris Reeve as Superman. I don't think I need to explain this.

3. Henry Cavill as Superman. Agree with the OP, that Reeve was the perfect
Silver Age Superman, but Cavill is spot on for the 21st Century Man of
Steel.

4. Tom Hiddleston as Loki, no explanation needed really.
(Honourable mention to Anthony Hopkins as Odin, because that's how I always imagined Odin, particularly when he's pissed off ! "But you're NOT KING !"


5. vastly underrated, Michael Chiklis as the Thing, I don't get all the hate for the FF films, especially since Chiklis got Ben Grimm 100% right. His Thing was precisely like the comic book version. Having said that I think Chris Evans nailed the Human Torch, wise-cracking, egotistical. Two perfect castings !

6. J.K. Simmons as J Jonah Jameson. He just brings the obnoxiousness that is JJ to life.

7. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, probably the most difficult character to make sympathetic, yet true to the comic, but Haley absolutely nails it.

8. Mark Strong as Sinestro. He got that cold, alien superiority complex absolutely spot on. Hopefully he's the only thing they keep next time GL shows up on screen.

9. Gary Oldman as James Gordon: he nailed it, could have walked right out of the panels of Batman:Year One.

10. Chris Evans as Captain America. I hate Captain America as a character, but Evans makes him at least somewhat likeable. He certainly looks the part and he's just as straight and boring as Cap is in the comics.

Honourable mention to Sir Ian McKellen as Magneto. He captures Magneto's
rage, ruthlessness and self-righteousness very much looking like the first version of Magneto who was elderly - not so easy to identify with Magneto today who's physically much younger. Fassbender is pretty amazing as young Magneto, probably as close to perfect casting as you could get for that role.


I can't really include Batman or Joker castings, because the character gets reinterpreted so much - there have been 5 different onscreen Batmen, personally Bale's my favourite, and in Dark Knight, as close as I think it comes to a definitive Batman. But having said that he's still not the perfect Batman - and I'm not even sure why I say that, just an impression really. It's like when Cavill appears in the blue suit for the first time, something inside me says
"That's Superman" whereas even with Bale, the best Batman so far, I don't get the same feeling.

Same goes for the Joker, Nicholson and Ledger were brilliant, but I'm not sure either is the perfect casting. Great versions of the Joker - I suppose Nicholson is close to perfection in terms of performance if not the look, whereas Ledger's look is Nolan's reimagining of the character.

I also can't include Jackman as Wolverine, Hemsworth as Thor or RDJ as Iron man, because rather than bring the character (from the comics) to life, they provided a version of the character that's become generally accepted to the audience. Not a bad thing, they all did a very good job.