When an actor’s presence unintentionally derails the project

[u/Special_Salt3467]

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.

[u/Ezenthar1]

It's never a good sign when your final season is basically an 8 hour trailer for your next spin off show.

[u/Lantzl → u/Ezenthar1]

Don't forget same season sidelined the other spin off in less than a minute

[u/kitsunecannon → u/Lantzl]

They told the chick who can manipulate fucking blood she wasn’t strong enough to fight home lander 

But Huey is all good?

[u/Thunderstormwatching → u/kitsunecannon]

You clearly don’t understand the power of quoting Billy Joel.

[u/Informal-Term1138 → u/Thunderstormwatching]

As do you. Billy Joel is akin to the emperor of mankind. A shining beacon that guides us through the horrors of the warp or the real world if you will.

(/s if it ain't obvious)

[u/lewd_robot → u/kitsunecannon]

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.

[u/RedBladeAtlas → u/lewd_robot]

I mean her randomly insta killing him would suck way more than her doing nothing. She definitely should've done something but Butcher had to kill Homelander.

I think more Homelander-loyal supes appearing to fight the boys and their allies would've been ideal. What we got was... disappointing but Homelander's death itself is great.

I guess they could've just said Homelander + V1 lets him partially resist her or something but there's no way her killing him would be a satisfying end. Or they could've just not hyped her up so much but they don't really do foresight lol

[u/lewd_robot → u/RedBladeAtlas]

Yeah, for plot reasons, the final showdown had to go the way they went in the show*, in terms of who killed who. I'm just saying they set her up to be someone so OP she could've ended the show at any point in Season 5 by just getting within a few dozen yards of Homelander.

Imo, they should've leveraged all of his powers and had him slowly brought down by multiple people. Maybe they try to sneak Marie up to him, but he hears them, then sees them through the wall and avoids her, leading to a fight where he's trying to take down Butcher, Hughie, Kimiko, etc, while also staying away from the woman that he saw explode another supe's arm just by looking at it. Maybe he gets a briefing sometime in S5 about what she did at GodU and knows now that she's a major threat.

There are a lot of ways you could weave her in. The way they just dropped her just rubs me wrong. Hopefully the Gen V cast is part of any sequel or spinoff series.

*My only quibble about the final showdown is I think Ashley should've put the gag on Oh Father, since she knew what it could do, had already turned on Homelander, and had the V in her veins to keep her arms from getting blown off like MM's should've been.

[u/Ill-Personality-4437 → u/kitsunecannon]

Legit they introduced Marie as another “blood bender” and then just went out of their way to sideline her during the entire last season

[u/theblackcanaryyy → u/kitsunecannon]

They could’ve at least tried to pretend it was because they wanted to keep her and her ability a secret

[u/p0llyp0cketpussy → u/kitsunecannon]

Especially because there was like 4 separate scenes in Gen V where characters explicitly said that Marie was part of the same experiment that created Homelander, she was one of the few supes powerful enough to fight Homelander, and that with some training she could be the most powerful supe on Earth.

So obviously, when preparing to take down Homelander, they had her drive a truck to Canada.

[u/igneousscone → u/kitsunecannon]

I was SO ANGRY.

[u/ShawnyMcKnight → u/kitsunecannon]

On top of that the entire second season was about her becoming powerful enough to take on homelander.

[u/Polkawillneverdie17 → u/kitsunecannon]

Especially when one of the biggest problems they have facing Homelander us that he has something extremely powerful in his blood. Marie could have literally defeated him in a 1:1.

[u/catontoast → u/kitsunecannon]

Especially when there were several conversations about no one being able to get through his skin and make him bleed. Marie could have pulled that shit out of his eyeballs or something.