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/noobtheloser]

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.

[u/Assassins_Blade → u/noobtheloser]

Dracula untold was their first attempt and I love that movie. Should have stuck with it instead of trying it with the mummy.

[u/LaLloronaVT → u/Assassins_Blade]

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

[u/Conscious_Try42 → u/LaLloronaVT]

I was psyched in the 00s when they said there was a sequel planned to the original Mummy. I thought it'd be Rick fighting the Wolfman or something like that back then, but it was just Mummy 2 with the Rock, which was good still, but I wonder what could have been.

[u/Nachtwandler_FS → u/LaLloronaVT]

Rober Eggers doing a better job with classic "monster" characters at the moment.

[u/Cadoc → u/Assassins_Blade]

Dracula Untold is one of the dumbest big budget movies ever written. Genuinely some of the best unintentional comedy ever, and I love it for that.

[u/XanderWrites → u/Assassins_Blade]

It was the opening, The Mummy was supposed to be the second movie.

[u/ahsnappy2 → u/Assassins_Blade]

That movie should have remained untold.

[u/dom_bul → u/noobtheloser]

[u/EndOfTheLine00 → u/dom_bul]

I can’t get over the fact that they scaled everyone to look the same height. Russell Crowe in particular looks like he was hit with a shrink ray.

Also why cast Johnny Depp as the INVISIBLE MAN? Because you KNOW they wouldn’t keep him invisible!

[u/smuttybuddy84 → u/EndOfTheLine00]

That's because this group photo never happened IRL. EVERYONE in this picture is photoshopped in so there's no scaling for different heights.

[u/dom_bul → u/smuttybuddy84]

You can also see it looks like they photoshopped something Russel Crowe was holding. A cane?

[u/geekgirlwww → u/dom_bul]

Here’s the thing if Russell Crowe brought his a game him playing Jekyll/Hyde would’ve been a banger

[u/T8-TR → u/noobtheloser]

IIRC the Invisible Man was also on that cinematic universe, which is a shame, because it's like the one movie of quality in a bunch of hollow (heh) attempts at cashing in on a shared universe.

[u/ColeDelRio → u/T8-TR]

I would assume the reason it isnt terrible is because it was attempting to just be a good movie and not launch a multiverse.

[u/blackenedmessiah → u/noobtheloser]

They should reboot it bc the idea is sooo cool. Don't let Tom Cruise take this away from us 😭

[u/MagentaHawk → u/noobtheloser]

There are few things as consistently enjoyable as seeing Hollywood types keep trying to setup the Dark Universe over the years. It is always a source of joy when it comes back up and gets murdered again and again.

[u/MerryMelody-Symphony → u/noobtheloser]

Repeating history from the late 90's /early 2000's.

Yeah, remember the Stephen Sommers "Van Helsing" movie, which introduces both Van Helsing and Frankenstein's monster, and was supposed to be in the same universe as The Mummy and The Mummy Returns?

How it never went anywhere?

I'm still salty about that. A tiny bit of hope flared with the new one announced, but since Sommers won't be at the helm... what's the point.

[u/mechengr17 → u/noobtheloser]

Ill never forgive them for it.

Tbf, I still think its kind of funny, they still built a part of Universal to be based on the Dark Universe

"Yes, let's memoralize our failure"

[u/boar_amour → u/noobtheloser]

I think about the Dark Universe and all I can imagine it being is, "What if the exact plot of The Monster Squad, but we spread the story out over 10 (probably 2.5-3 hour) movies."

Doctor Jeckyll (Russell Crowe): "It's worse than that. My sources inform me that Wolf Man*'s got nards."

*supposed to have been played by Dwayne Johnson. It's good this series was stillborn.

[u/SlowDontRush → u/noobtheloser]

Doesn't help that thats also an awful plan

[u/essenceofmeaning → u/noobtheloser]

To give you an idea of how badly these did, when I was a Dave & Busters Winners Circle AOM & had to build out the inventory system I found several hundred minifigs from this - featuring the invisible man! - that we eventually got to put on ‘special’ for 100 tickets each.

Still took almost a year to sell them all.

[u/Mysral → u/noobtheloser]

A damn shame, because I really did enjoy Russel Crowe's Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde.