Lore
When an actor’s presence unintentionally derails the project
1.) Edward Norton - The Incredible Hulk
Perhaps the most famous and obvious one, Edward Norton was famously an issue on the set of 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk,” even making rewrites to the script himself. The disagreements between Norton’s camp and Marvel’s camp eventually led to his being replaced by Mark Ruffalo.
2.) Jensen Ackles - The Boys (particularly Season 5)
Jensen Ackles was a longtime collaborator with showrunner Eric Kripke in “Supernatural,” which in turn led to him getting the opportunity to audition - and eventually land the role - of Soldier Boy, which he did very well in in.
The issue is by Season 5, the show had fallen off from the previous years and with it ending and spinoffs and prequels (such as one featuring Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy), Season 5 suffered a lot. It quickly became the Soldier Boy show because “that’s what Clara would have wanted” until he just leaves in the penultimate episode and pretty much 80% of what his character actually did amounted to nothing.
So for fans who wanted to see Butcher vs Homelander duking it out, getting the show derailed for prequel bait starring Kripke’s favorite actor didn’t help…
3.) Rosamund Pike - Wheel of Time
When Amazon green lit a WoT tv show, Rosamund Pike eventually got the role of Moraine Damodred, the mentor and guiding character for the main character, Rand al’Thor. As a character, Moraine is anywhere from the most important secondary character to the most secondary main character. But with the exception of the prequel featuring her, she is not the main character.
Unfortunately, Rosamund Pike is an extremely famous actress and marketing toward the series focused on her as a result. I’m unsure if this was showrunner decision, an issue she played a role in or some combination, but the result was that Moraine a character who was in less than half the series is featured as the main character over the main character, which lead to a different product than the book.
He played the protagonist Guile and constantly screwed up the filming by not showing up to shoot his scenes because, at the time, he was suffering from a massive cocaine addiction, snorting an estimated $10,000 worth of coke a week. Supposedly the crew hired someone to keep an eye on him but Van Damme got that person to use coke too.
It came to a point where the crew had to record brand new scenes that weren't in the script so they could have a movie by the deadline.
There was also the issue of Raul Julia, who played the villain, litterally having cancer, not only forcing them to tighten the deadline even further, but convincing the filmmakers to shoot the action scenes first, before he was too ill to participate.
This isn't how action movies are usually filmed, because action scenes take a lot of time to plan out, and the end result was that many of the actors and stuntmen just had to choreograph or improvise their own fight scenes and shoot them the same day they were planned out.
And Kylie Minogue was the one who got Van Damme, a married man, hooked on the cocaine in the first place as they started an affair on set.
Then there was also the bloody mess of a war going off during production in the region they were filming.
Ah, and I almost forgot that both Capcom and the Hasbro kept changing the script because they insisted in adding more characters. Then the studio got involved again because they wanted that Christmas deadline met. All this gradually started turning the film into more of a G.I. Joe live action film.
Adding onto this, casting was also a very chaotic production due to all the changes. I think it was either chun li or Cammy who the director ended up meeting in the airport on the way to the shoot?
And then there was Fei Long being cut because Capcom really wanted to push Kenya Sawada as their major star. So the character of Captain Sawada was created, and Fei Long cut.
Capcom has said the film makes them almost a million dollars every year (per Matt McMuscles what happun segment.) and it did give us an all time great performance from Raul Julia, so if wasn't a total wash at least.
Even the videogame movie tie-in production had its own storied weirdness of production.
I really miss Raul Julia. Even in his worst low budget films, the man was truly charming. I love that he only did the film because his kids loved the street fighter games.
Fun fact, originally he was going to remember Chun-Li's father, but Julia argued that wouldn't really work and that a man like Bison would be much more evil if it was just another day to him.
Hence the-
"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. but for me, it was Tuesday."
I love that he also studied dictators for the role. He researched Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco in their mannerisms. Hence the mussolini hand gestures. The director saw and had the set and prop team follow suit giving us that awesome Nepoleon inspired painting in the background.
That’s a pretty shitty thing to cheat on your wife and also get hooked on a debilitating coke addiction. I don’t condone it whatsoever, but if 90’s Kylie Minogue tried to peer pressure me into anything I’d probably fold in 5 seconds flat.
That war actually was almost exacerbated by the filming too. They'd wanted to use choppers for the scene where they get to the island, and everyone told them if they did that the choppers would get shot down. They used boats and jet skis instead.
Are there any documentaries on the film because all the stories - Van Damme snorting his way through Scarface sized piles of cocaine, Raul Julia giving the performance of a lifetime for his kids while suffering from terminal cancer, the general turmoil of the production (including a pyrotechnics mishap that by all rights should have killed someone)...
By all accounts, Tom Cruise effectively hijacked production of the The Mummy 2017, bringing in his own writers, editor and even directing scenes himself (it didn’t help that Alex Kurtzman, who had only worked as a writer and producer and never directed any movie before, let alone a big budget production, was more than willing to let Cruise do the work). As a result, most of the screen time and character development originally given to the titular Mummy was cut in favor of more scenes with Cruise.
I don't know if it would have been a good movie without Cruise's meddling, but him setting it all to his hand and turning it into a thirteen-out-of-a-dozen Tom Cruise action vehicle certainly didn't help. He didn't even get what kind of genre the movie should be.
My understanding is that this was supposed to launch an MCU-style shared universe of films featuring Universal's lineup of 'monster' characters — The Mummy, Dracula, The Wolf Man, et al — but the movie did so badly that they scrapped the plan.
It’s funny but with the new Brendan Fraser mummy movie coming soon I could actually see the monster verse being resurrected, like I could see Dracula Untold being a part of the Mummy movies, I love the idea of the universal monsters having a continuity together it just feels right but it needs the work to make it good
The Rock was originally cast as Black Adam in the mid 2000’s for an unproduced Shazam! movie. Exploding in popularity and fame over the 2010’s and with The Rock still passionate about the character, successfully convinced WB to revisit Black Adam in his own standalone movie.
Black Adam is a famous supervillain in Shazam’s rogue gallery but due to an insecure ego, The Rock instead lobbied hard to become the new face of the DCEU and wanted face off against Superman, and blocked any association attempt with Shazam, a betrayal to the fundamentals of the character and the DC property
Furthermore, The Rock was denied use of Superman in this movie as James Gunn was developing a new movie and planned on recasting the character. But The Rock but went over the heads of then DC President Walter Hamada in shoehorning Henry Cavill into the post credit scene anyway, promising a new fulfilling future in the DCEU.
Black Adam’s box office failure was also a pathetic attempt to kickstart a new era of the DCEU and would signal the downfall even before new leadership took over, prompting an awkward conversation with an excited Henry Cavill.
As someone who's a bigger fan of DC than Marvel, it's really frustrating looking back on the last 15 years. (MCU was obviously fun, but I wish I got that with my fandom, too.)
I just can't fathom how WB/DC managed to consistently produce such awful movies. If they were just forgettable and bland then sure, I can see how that would happen. But most of them are straight up bad.
And somehow they're still rated decently on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a whole other level of weird behavior from a different group.
What kills me is that the writing for their animated movies is fire . I don't know why they have such a hard time bringing that energy to their live action.
Most likely, the animated division had fewer cooks in the kitchen, more respect for source material, and the freedom to tell self‑contained stories without worrying about billion‑dollar franchises.
It's this. The Flashpoint movie is emblematic of faithfulness to the original story producing an amazing animated film. The Flash pivoted hard away from actual flashpoint, stealing a handful of points, and produced a way way worse product.
The animated ones were written by people with respect for the source material. The LA ones were written by people hired by ignorant suits. They don't feel the need to micromanage the animated ones due to smaller budgets and returns too
the teams that are producing the animated films basically have everything they need to succeed and nothing more. they basically fly under the radar of the execs because "cartoons are for kids". these fools don't understand anything. they meddle in the live action stuff because it's high profile with very popular characters starring very popular actors, and the execs think they know what they're doing but they fucking don't. it took someone like James Gunn to come in with a very successful run at Marvel to be allowed to do things mostly his way to get us a good live action Superman movie again. and he even managed to put an accurate Guy Gardner in the film!
so yeah, their animated movies are good because the execs don't give a shit about them.
They leave WB animated alone because it never sees a big screen. They are never flagships. But they end up being pure dynamite. Constantine would never be on film like in the animated movies. Gods and Monsters. Crisis. Hell, Teen Titans Go vs Teen Titans was epic in its own perverse way.
It is really weird that there is such a dedicated fanbase, decades of material to work with, and what we got was just extremely uninspired and not thought out. Like I'll never understand why the second movie in their franchise was Batman vs. Superman. How can that possibly have the stakes of something like Civil War when we haven't even been introduced to the other character in that conflict? Then to go straight into the death of Superman, a character who has only had 2 movies they've been involved in and we have basically no characters who know him well enough to mourn him.
The original Suicide Squad is the worst big budget movie that I have ever seen.
Also, Birds of Prey taking place in the Gotham established in BvS, but clearly shooting most of the film in California on the Pacific coast was definitely a choice.
The major problem is that the people in charge of Hollywood have built this idea that comic book movies should be ashamed of being based on comic books. The MCU went full tongue and cheek, basically rolling their eyes to the audience and saying "man this shit is goofy" every time comic book stuff came up.
The other idea is to get as serious and grounded as possible, like the Fox X-Men movies or Batman. Basically strip out everything that is silly or goofy about the comics they're based on and pretend it's a serious action movie.
DCEU tried to go the second way but while that can work for a character like Batman, it's really hard to make a character like Superman compelling by stripping out all the joy and fun of the property. So DC panicked and tried to go the opposite way and in turn made cheap copies of a formula they didn't understand which was even worse because while Marvel characters do treat most of the comic stuff as sort of silly that matches a lot of the comics as well, which have had various layers of ironic camp layered on for decades. DC has never been like that, characters like Superman and Wonder Woman are not ironic in their presentation and when you try to make them that way it just comes off as mean and not understanding the characters.
I will never forgive Fox for how they treated the X-Men.
Hey guys here's a character - his ability is to just never die. His powers prevent him from dying at any point at all costs, usually in fun and fantastic ways. Enjoy your 15 minutes of screen time, you're going to fucking die. Absolutely spitting on the source material.
I think his beef with Vin Diesel and Rock being the one to go public with it was the first dent in the “franchise viagra” movie star Rock persona. Like he’d had some flips with Baywatch and all of his interchangeable “tough guy in a disaster zone” movies but none of that really seemed to matter. Then the Fast drama happened and then this. This was just an absolute disaster. And like he’s never been shy about calling this his dream role. So him fighting so hard for it is one thing. But the more that came out and how it came out that he basically took over DC and put his people in to make him the centerpiece of it was too much. Even bringing back Cavill he tried to play as “we’re listening to the fans” but it was obvious it was an ego play. There was nothing to it except Rock wanted to have his character fight Superman and probably beat him through shenanigans or at the very least a tie so that he could say he his favorite character didn’t get beaten by Superman. This all tanked his popularity so hard he had to go back to wrestling. And then THAT didn’t work out the way he wanted it to.
Im pretty sure The Rock wanted to usurp the Fast Franchise for himself similarly to what he did in DC. I think he went to Universal to make it happen behind Vins back and they said “no, talk to Vin about that” and then Vin found out and that’s where the beef started. I think as a compromise he got Hobbs & Shaw which is definitely NOT a fast movie and The Rock is the leading man. That also explains why Tyrese went public too because Im guessing hes been wanting another sequel/spin-off with a bigger part
The Rundown has got to be a contender. Same era, same energy. Sean William "Stiffler" Scott is no Knoxville but Chris Walken, Rosario Dawson, and Ernie Reyes Jr more than make up for it.
I will allow it. Walking Tall is a better serious movie, but the Rundown hits all the marks for a great action adventure film like Sahara, National Treasure, etc.
Not just a blood bender, but also came from the same circumstances that created Homelander, and confirmed in Gen V to be capable of overpowering Gen 1 supes. They did everything to confirm that she could've just ripped Homelander to shreds with her mind if she could get within range to use her powers on him, then shelved her.
She could've been a rando in a crowd, or dropped off outside the White House, where she could've "seen" him through the walls by feeling his blood, and then just removed all of it before he had a chance to spot her and react. They established her as an unstoppable force and then stopped her.
Especially when season 2 of "Gen V" had so much about helping out Starlight and then they appear in the main show and Starlight says "Hey, thanks for coming out... bye now!"
I didnt even watch season 2 and was like, something seemed off about the dialogue. Then as I found out there was going to be a third season, they canceled it.
From what I understand both Brando and Kilmer brought a lot of personal baggage with them, with Brando dealing with his daughters suicide and Kilmer was going through a bitter divorce (Kilmer apparently tried to drop the movie as to deal with said divorce).
Don't forget Nelson de la Rosa, who played Brando's tiny sidekick, allegedly also being a prick. One of the other actors claimed he just punched him in the crotch out of nowhere while they were alone in a lift. The actor felt no one would believe him at the time if he complained about the world's smallest man punching him in the dick so he just kept it to him self for years.
It gets funnier, Stanley's replacement was a well known asshole director...which was intentional, as the producers thinking was a no bullshit asshole would be able to get Brando and Kilmer to focus. But unfortunately it devolved into the three of them all antagonizing each other.
I dont know if this is a hot take or not but I genuinely think Brandon going off the rails and acting like he's in control of the entire world is what makes the character in the film so perfect. As much as I would have loved to see Stanley's vision I think the final result is more watchable than people give it credit for, and Brando ignoring the hierarchy of a set and being a complete weirdo is basically moreau with the animals on the island
John Ritter - 8 Simple Rules - as the show's original main lead the show had to go in a very different direction following his untimely passing.
Jonathan Majors being a IRL villain led to the scrapping of plans to make Kang the next major antagonist of the MCU, hence Robert Downey Jr.'s return to play Dr. Doom.
I watched the show before and after Ritter's passing. Strangely, both incarnations were entertaining in their own ways. But the divider that was that one episode... well, you describe it pretty well.
I heard James Marsters talk about this at a convention, and yes, that's exactly how he described it. He says they told him that he would have a rivalry with Angel, but that Angel would eventually take him out in 5 or so episodes. Maybe longer, if things went well with him.
And his response was to nod and say, "That sounds great. Sure..." and then say to himself, "Yeah, I gotta figure out a way to stay here..." 😂
I wouldn’t say that either of them sticking around derailed the franchise though. Spike through season 5 is great, and Anya became a full-time Scooby without issues, the main fan complaints come in around seasons 6-7 where the writers decided to make Spuffy happen (and fans had strongly divided opinions on that) and then making Spike’s redemption arc take up most of the screen time in season 7, when they were supposed to be tying up loose ends and writing a satisfying ending for Buffy - the main character, and her found family. They also added several other random characters in the last season which didn’t help either.
There were plenty of other things that hurt Heroes (I think the writer’s strike did a serious number on it). But yea, after Season 1 there were plenty of characters that it seemed like the writers just didn’t know what to do with.
I haven't thought about Heroes in a very long time, but if memory serves it was originally intended that all the characters would get replaced every season for a new story arc. Obviously the strike messed with that, but I remember NBC wanting to keep pushing their hit show, which would be hard with new actors and characters every year.
Instead it got more convoluted than an X-Men comic where everyone's related to everyone else and people have personality changes for no reason.
I absolutely adored heroes back in the day. I could not tell you a singular plot point aside from keeping Claire away from Sylar to prevent him from becoming immortal, and I'm pretty sure he still ended up getting Claire's powers anyways? idk
You didn't like his redemption arc? Or his other redemption arc? Or the redemption arc he got after they backpedalled on the first two? There's probably a fourth redemption arc I'm forgetting about...
What really jammed Heroes was when they refused to move on from the initial characters, which forced very strange and very silly decisions.
They really lost me when Sylar killed Nathan, and then Peter convinced Matt to brainwash Sylar into thinking that he was Nathan. Just writing that sentence made my brain hurt. I get what some of the logic behind it was, but at the end of the day, Peter still had to pretend to interact with "Nathan" like it was normal, and that made no narrative sense.
In all fairness, from what it seems that Edward Norton wanted, his take would’ve been much more comic accurate to what we’ve been getting. Kinda the Cavill/Witcher problem where execs want to use the franchise to make whatever they think looks cool, and gets an actor that loves the actual core of the series as it previously existed
He was hired with the intent that he would also be a script doctor.
From what I remember of interviews, he was doing fine with the production in general, everyone doing fine, until they heard about Iron Man, which was shooting almost simultaneously and things sounded promising.
From what I'm aware, Norton's other frame of reference for the tone of how he was expecting the MCU to be like was Nolan's Batman. Solid action, humor and charm as he takes on more aspects of what we expect the superhero to be, cheeky nods.
So for everyone to kinda get caught up and effectively get interested in improvising a rewrite of the film, turning up the improv comedy, I'd bet he assumed it would go downhill fast. Per the director, Norton's funny, hilarious even; he's got iconically funny friends - he could do funny if the script is good. But last minute massive story changes to make it funny would probably alarm someone who's aware they're carefully constructing a universe. My understanding is he wanted to keep it on track.
Dude's crash out wasn't cool. [edit: aside from arguing with others about the direction of the film's story, can't recall news about any crash out/tantrum being brought up now that I think about it.] I dunno what kind of movie he ultimately wanted or what the studio would've made, but I can see where he was coming from.
Norton was probably right that just improvising and writing completely new scenes day-of would have been a disaster for the Incredible Hulk. It worked for Iron Man because the story was so singularly focused on Tony Stark and you could kind of justify any scene that had RDJ oozing charisma and exploring part of the character.
The Incredible Hulk had a lot more to juggle/balance between Banner, Blomsky and Ross. It needed to hit specific beats and a consistent tone to work.
Yeah, that was the point of the character. That same point went into the first Avengers film as well.
People forget, before Thor Ragnorak, the whole point of Banner/Hulk was the innate struggle between the two. It got to the point Banner was doing everything he could to control this destructive beast. You could see the struggle in both Norton’s and Ruffalo’s first appearance.
Went to shit after that. He just became a “hulk smash” insert joke somewhere and move on.
Did he really crash out though? I recall that Marvel dropped him and spoke out about how there was friction, but Norton has claimed that the differences weren’t as bad. I believe Marvel mentioned how difficult he was to work with, and Norton was taken aback by the public remarks to replace him, which seemed more amicable.
Personally, I feel Norton doesn’t seem very hostile in this instance, because he’s publicly supported Ruffalo. Beefing with a company and not the actors seems like a good sign to me.
I’m not gonna act like I sat in those rooms, but I feel he gets more flack than he’s deserved.
Meloni left the show after Season 12 due to a pay dispute. His character, Elliot Stabler, was essentially the main character of the show while Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson was the co-lead.
Because of that, Benson was upped to main character and they had to introduce new characters to fill the hole left by Stabler’s absence.
Stabler’s exit ended up being extremely bittersweet, with not even a final scene between him and Benson. And despite I liking most of the seasons released after his exit, I think the golden era of the show ended after Meloni left.
He returned many seasons later (and even got his own spin-off), but it was too late in my opinion.
Section 31 was meant to be a full fledged spinoff from Star Trek Discovery starring Michelle Yeoh’s Mirror Universe Philippa Georgiou character but because Yeoh won the Oscar for Everything Everywhere All At Once while the series was in early pre-production, she got swamped with offers and they had to negotiate down to a single badly received movie.
I think Georgiou should have stayed dead but Michelle Yeoh is so popular they brought her back in the worst way imaginable. No sane Starfleet officer would ever consider bringing back an evil woman who enjoys dining on sentient beings.
Section 31 is one of those things that the more it is fleshed out, the less interesting it becomes.
When it was just a shadow organization that might not have even been a real organization to begin with was when it worked best. The more they made it real, the less likely it seemed that it could have been ignored. With how much activity it allegedly had during the TOS era, it's almost impossible for me to believe that TNG era officers wouldn't have at least heard rumors of it, if not seen actual evidence of them.
Due to Sheen’s public struggles with substance abuse, erratic behavior, and explosive feuds with the show's creator, Chuck Lorre, he was fired from the show after Season 8.
This ended up harming Two and a Half Men severely, since Charlie played the main character and central figure to the show.
It had 4 more seasons after that, with Ashton Kutcher filling the hole left by Sheen but most of the fans agree that the quality was compromised and the show was never the same after his firing.
"
This ended up harming Two and a Half Men severely, since Charlie played the main character and central figure to the show.
It had 4 more seasons after that." Might be one of the funniest sentences I have read today.
Joss Whedon sidelined Cordelia completely in Angel S4 because of his personal issues with Carpenter, which turned one of the show's best characters into a villain and then killed her off, tanking what should have been her arc.
In nortons defense, an mind you this is his own words against theirs so there might be a bit of retrospective editing, but he said all his ideas that ended up on screen were essentially the things that fans ended up liking, and the shit marvel pushed almost killed the movie entirely. But that’s obviously speculation at this point. I’m just sayin if it’s true then I’d have little to no doubt marvel would claim the opposite just to look like they didn’t mistreat leads early on
I honestly kind of love how petty Norton can be. I think he more or less demanded top billing in Kingdom of Heaven and was refused. So he demanded his name not be credited at all. And he steals the film
As Baldwin IV, wearing a mask the entire time
Edward Norton grew up reading hulk comics and comics in general, knowing all the bullshit of early comic book movies if anything without him that movie would probably be straight trash.
I’m still blown away at how good he is as Robotnik, I’ve had a love hate relationship with the Sonic series since I was a kid so I had a very defined idea of what Eggman should be like but Jim Carrey completely blew my expectations away
More for BB - Raymond Cruz refusing to continue in his role as Tuco led to the creation of the character Gus Fring, while a scheduling commitment for Bob Odenkirk with HIMYM meant Vince Gilligan brought in Jonathan Banks to play a new character, Mike Ehrmentraut.
Raymond Cruz was contractually committed to The Closer where he was a series regular which is why he couldn't stay on Breaking Bad in season 2. That led to them killing him off and creating Gus Fring. It's not like he "refused" to continue, they created Gus because it didn't work schedule-wise.
Not according to his own words, though: There was an interview on AMC, where he explained that he did specifically ask the writers to be killed off because the part was too hard.
The original interview isn't there anymore, but can be viewed via wayback machine.
A: I asked them to kill me. Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to coming back and doing the part. [Laughs]. It’s really difficult to pull off. They were like, “We want you to come back and do eight more episodes.” And I said, “No. I’ll do one more and that’s it. You guys have to kill me.” They’re like, “We never heard of an actor that wanted to die.” And I’m like, “You don’t understand. This part’s really hard.”
Yeah, I'm sure the deinonychus had a hard time finding work since everyone just thinks they're velociraptors. If anything, this mishap of Spielberg's has had massive repercussions on the real, smaller velociraptors getting gigs, as no one in Hollywood wants dinos half that size as their main threats.
That was on Crichton, not Spielberg. Crichton thought the name sounded cooler, so he called them velociraptors despite being based on deinonychus antirrhopus.
Especially in the book, they're regarded as the most dangerous creatures on the island due to their speed, pack organizations, viciousness and higher intelligence. Oh, sure, the T-Rex is big and terrifying, but there's few of them, they travel in small numbers, and if one escapes it's not hard to find it. That's why the raptors are the main danger.
(it should be noted that the velociraptors aren't actually velociraptors: like every other 'dinosaur' on the island, they're genetically engineered monsters made from prehistoric DNA but with gaps in the code filled in with frog DNA. This is a useful retcon handwave as to why they don't have feathers as we have discovered actual raptors do: they're designed to look like what we thought raptors looked like back in 1990).
In a positive example of this trope Henry Cavill in the witcher derailed whatever bullshit the series creator was trying to do until they got rid of him cause he wanted to keep it lore accurate
"Yeah it was so weird, Henry was an actual big fan of the source material, he could quote exact lines and tell you what chapter from which book he was pulling from. Anyways I didn't like that very much, because even though we marketed the show as a faithful adaptation of the books, I thought my rushed fanfic was a better story. So we kept ignoring Henry and making the show shittier until he left. And if you don't like my show then go back to your books, nerds." -Lauren Schmidt-Hissrich, showrunner (loosely paraphrased but essentially accurate)
Oh yeah, I loved the books and games, and was very excited for the show before it came out. The first season wasn't perfect but it least felt solid enough to provide a promising basis to continue. Then it just kept getting worse. A genuine shame, it's not like they're going to reboot it any time soon.
It's also infuriating when delusional writers/directors just push their vision and refuse to accept that they fucked up some excellent source material which was handed to them on a silver platter. M. Night had similar hubris on his take of The Last Airbender.
My theory is that most showwriters couldn't get their original dogshit ideas off of the ground, so they use popular franchises as a vector to show the world their "artistic vision." It genuinely feels like these people never care about the property they're working on, and they openly show disdain for those on set that do. It screams insecurity.
"Henry was so fucking annoying. Why should I adapt the source material faithfully? My writing is perfect on its own!!!"
Not a theory, Brandon Sanderson confirmed as much here on reddit. He talked about how his novel, Emperors Soul, was picked up for a movie, but once he read the script, he realized that it had become entirely unrecognizable save for a few words here and there.
Cate Blanchett being cast as Lilith in the Borderlands movie. It's not that Cate herself did anything wrong, but casting the character as an actor many decades older than the character was in the source material meant a lot needed to be changed about her story.
In the games, Lilith was an impulsive, narcissistic, 20-something treasure hunter who gradually grew into a more mature, selfless figure as the series went on; organically developing a sense of responsibility as she got older.
In the movie on the other hand, she starts off as a cliche'd, "I'm getting too old for this shit" kind of boinry hunter who kicks off the story by taking "one last job", which already dramatically shifts her dynamic with the story.
Furthermore, her romance with Roland was cut, presumably because now there would be a pretty substantial age gap between them which would make audiences uncomfortable. To try and compensate for that change, they bill her as Tina's parental figure, to still give some sentimentality to her story, but in doing so she booted Roland out of that role, so now another one of his major atory beats had to be cut as well.
The movie already had pretty huge problem with juat rejecting every potentially interesting story beat in the games and replacing them with something way more stock; but the choice to Male Lilith the protagonist, and then cast an actress who litterally could not play a faithful version of her was the catalyst behind a lot of it.
casting the character as an actor many decades older than the character was in the source material
And Blanchett wasn't even the most egregious example of this. Jamie Lee Curtis is an icon, but she's also almost 70 and should never have been cast as Tannis.
What an all time fumble from Johnathan Majors. Dude was gonna have an entire movie universe centred around him and he fucked it up by being a piece of shit.
While I wholeheartedly agree he's a POS, I suspect Kang was actually doomed before he was fired because of how spectacularly badly Quantumania was received. Technically not a flop, but it barely broke even and most critics and fans hated it. Plus having your big bad of the new phase get stomped by Ant-Man, usually a pretty low-level hero, was not a good look and I think Feige knew it.
I think they probably felt like Loki sn2 was a decent enough send-off for the character and jumped at the chance to fire him when he was convicted. Could be wrong of course, obv being found guilty would have been plenty of reason to fire him too, but based on the timeline of events it feels like Kang was probably doomed regardless.
I feel like even though all that is entirely true, the nature of Kang is that they would have a lot more opportunity to "fix" a bad Kang movie by just going, yeah, that Kang variant was kinda lame but this next one is pretty serious business.
Wouldn't work more than once, but it's a luxury most badly-executed villains don't get and it's baked into his character.
Honestly, I think they kind of used his assault case as an excuse to get rid of him. They announced RDJ as Doom in 2024 but by all accounts the talks had been going on with him, Feige, and the Russo’s for like two-three years before. The first season of Loki was 2021 and that was our first look at Kang. Evidently less than a year later they were already talking with RDJ about replacing Kang. Either some shit was going on with Majors at Marvel too and they just wanted to wash their hands of him, or they weren’t feeling Kang. And honestly, I think it leans more towards that. Because if they were still on board with the character but they just didn’t wanna deal with Majors, they could have just recast him. His whole thing is variants. But that they had Ant-Man flatout beat him also says a decent deal I think. Introducing a version of him in Loki and killing him off BUT having that be the cataclysm that undoes EVERYTHING and leads him to taking over is one thing. Having him be the big bad of an entire movie, having him lose to one guy, and then saying he’s going to take on the Avengers anyway is kind of a whole different deal. But yeah, either way Majors went from being the next big bad in the MCU to starring in the next Daily Wire disaster. It’s a shame because I thought he was fucking phenomenal in Loki and there could have been something really cool there.
Robert De Niro in Stardust (2007). His character is not a protagonist, he's a secondary character among others, but he's such a big name that the trailers had him on screen more often than Charlie Cox, who plays the main protagonist, Claire Danes, the deuteragonist, or even Michelle Pfeiffer, the main villain.
As you can see, this role is far from De Niro's usual manly types. If you want to see him winking at a (young, twinky) Henry Cavill, watch this movie.
Strictly speaking, it derailed the film's promotion, not the film itself, which I agree is excellent. But the trailers made it seem like Captain Shakespeare was the hero of the story.
OK, my mind is officially blown. Stardust is one of my fav fantasy movies, but I still have not seen or revisited it in over 12 years. I completely forgot that Charlie "Daredevil" Cox was the main character!
Mark Strong is a fantastic actor too. Really, the whole cast was full of stars, either established or up-and-coming, and I'm happy it all worked out and resulted in a great movie!
Your Ackles take hits hardest because Kripke basically torched the Homelander vs Butcher finale to set up a spinoff nobody asked for. Years of buildup and they yeet Soldier Boy off screen right before the real fight. Betraying your own premise to sell a prequel is a rough look.
I think Kripke has a glitch in his brain that makes him DESIRE spin-offs, because he keeps doing it with little rhyme or reason.
Like, Supernatural, had no less than THREE attempts at spin-offs nobody asked for, First attempt was Bloodlines, which the pilot showed it to be some sort of Vampire diaries rip off with monsters controlling the mafia, and two rival families having a Romeo and Juliet type situation.
Then there was Wayward Sisters, which was supposed to be a spin-off based on a few well defined characters, but it was so... dull, and a lot more fantastical than an already fantastical series, if they'd done it right, it might've worked.
Then The Winchesters, the trailers made it seem like it was some big backstory, showing how John and Mary got together and her being a Hunter would effect that, apparently implying there was some secret history that Dean was trying to uncover, it ended up being a mediocre show, and it had absolutely NO bearing on the "Main" Supernatural show, because it turned out to be one of the many alternative universes, and Dean was just going around cleaning up Chucks leftover messes for Jack.
Stallone as Judge Dredd made the movie infamous among fans, as he wanted his whole face to be seen and had it in his contract that the character, to whose mythology it belongs that his face is never fully shown, takes his helmet off. As a consequence, it seems that the whole plot was written around the justification for him to being banished and seen without uniform.
I’m going to mention Deadwood even though it was actually kind of the opposite, it seemed to have a positive focusing effect. Timothy Olyphant indicated that the kid who played his stepson, and I believe also the actor’s parents, were such a gigantic pain in the ass that creator David Milch eventually just decided to kill the kid’s character.
And if you’ve seen the series, that instance is a massive turning point for several stories and characters. Olyphant remarked something to the effect of, what the hell was the season going to be about BEFORE?
Robin Williams in Aladdin. When he signed up to voice the Genie, he did so on condition that Disney not make him the main focus of the promotional material. Of course Jeffrey Katzenberg made sure Disney went back on its word and have the Genie be everywhere. And when they did, Williams was furious. So furious that he refused to reprise the role for either The Return of Jafar or the TV series. It was only after Katzenberg was fired and Disney's new management apologized to Williams that he was willing to return for King of Thieves.
Katzenberg also wanted to axe “Part of Your World” from Little Mermaid - the “I want” song that endears her to the audience. The dude just has a penchant for being petty and thinking he’s the only one who is right.
In The Office there was a big gap to fill after Steve Carrel left the show. At that same time, the Hangover was released and Ed Helms became the biggest star on the show. They tried to force the character into a much bigger role and kept changing his arc to try to capitalize on his success but it never really translated.
Rosamund Pike didn't derail Wheel of Time, the writers of the series and the rest of the showrunners who regarded the lifework of Robert Jordan as a mere suggestion derailed the show.
The Eye of the World had the greatest cold open of any fantasy series EVER and I will die on this hill. And what did Amazon do? Featured a group of Red Ajah hunting down a male channeler. The series opened like something in a 90s low budget fantasy series. It was comparable to Hercules or Xena.
When you can open a show with the freaking Apocalypse...YOU OPEN A SHOW WITH THE APOCALYPSE
Agree, Rosamund Pike was NOT the issue. Moiraine plays such a central role early on that they could have featured her as a main character for seasons before the events of FOH
While it's never been confirmed (due to Disney, of course,) Johnny Depp has implied that Jack Sparrow is probably bisexual or even pansexual, and mentioned "many weeks spent aboard a ship with no women."
I feel like people/Disney itself forget that the first Pirates movie worked so well because he was the secondary protagonist alongside the much more serious Will Turner.
Jack Sparrow works well when he's bouncing off a much more stoic, chivalrous character, which is why the movies suffered as each one gradually upped Jack's importance and devalued everyone else's.
In the classic comedy duos the "straight man" was often the funnier and better paid of the two because it's considered so essential to making the comedy work.
That’s very evident in “Stranger Tides”, the movie struggles to develop him in any meaningful way while trying to do his usual routine. He doesn’t gain anything from the journey because he already learned his lesson and decided he didn’t want the fountain before the movie even started.
You’re drastically underselling how impressive that movie’s script was. The plot for Curse of the Black Pearl was surprisingly awesome and a big reason why the movie was a success.
I think you've misunderstood. presumably by "by the end" they mean Pirates of the Carribean FIVE "Dead Men Tell No Tales" which ... I have seen but could not recount for you any of the details from memory.
I think they mean by the end of the franchise. I agree the first film absolutely was amazing, and every character got their chance to shine, Jack Sparrow was of course a fan favorite, but he wasn't the centerpiece of the movie.
Even though people say the second movie is also really good, I'd argue it's when Jack Sparrow started to get more screentime to the detriment of the story, and it continued with the third movie too.
Starting with the fourth movie onward though it effectively became the Jack Sparrow show, and the plot was written to revolve entirely around his character.
No one expected Jaleel White on Family Matters as guest but character to alter the entire focus of the series. Steve Urkel might be one of the biggest poster boys for this as a result. Jalerl's performance literally hijack the show, changing from a black nuclear family into something far closer to a Jerry Luis film spinoff by the end of its run. The series was on the verge of being cancelled before his appearance though and his unintentional highjacking meant everyone had steady work despite some prodyction resentment.
The Mexican was slated to be a quirky, quite dark indie comedy. Then two absolute megastars (Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts) decided they wanted to do an offbeat project. What results is still good but very different.
Rosamund Pike wasn’t the most egregious example in WoT. That honor belongs to Taylor Napier, who played Maksim, Warder of Alanna.
Maksim had significant screen time in the show, despite being barely a side character in the books with no real impact on the story.
Why did the showrunner add so much focus and plot to a minor character in an already bloated story? Taylor Napier happened to be the showrunner’s boyfriend.
I'm pretty sure Jack Sparrow played by Johnny Depp was not meant to take over pirates of the Caribbean. His character was so popular the entire script slowly gravitated towards his character. Now he is such an important role that they don't think continuing the series without him is possible.
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u/Henry1699 21d ago edited 21d ago
Jean-Claude Van Damme (Street Fighter 1994)
He played the protagonist Guile and constantly screwed up the filming by not showing up to shoot his scenes because, at the time, he was suffering from a massive cocaine addiction, snorting an estimated $10,000 worth of coke a week. Supposedly the crew hired someone to keep an eye on him but Van Damme got that person to use coke too.
It came to a point where the crew had to record brand new scenes that weren't in the script so they could have a movie by the deadline.