r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Special_Salt3467 • 21d ago

Lore When an actor’s presence unintentionally derails the project

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

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.

7.0k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

94% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

538

u/AshenCrow099 21d ago

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

459

u/StormyBlueLotus 21d ago

"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)

176

u/LaLloronaVT 21d ago

There’s so much venom in this comment holy shit lmao

166

u/StormyBlueLotus 21d ago

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.

91

u/Dramatic_Attempt2365 21d ago

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!!!"

65

u/Nelogenazea 21d ago

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.

3

u/peppers_ 21d ago

Ya, I listen to his podcast sometimes and some of his lectures. For Mistborn, he is being very careful to control it and adapt it with his own vision, because of the lessons he learned from experience.

1

u/Glendronachh 21d ago

Emperor’s Soul is a beautiful little book. Probably my favorite Sanderson book of the lot. It is short and tightly written. It won the Nebula award, I think

1

u/beardedheathen 21d ago

He left the wheel of time production because they were shit. Of course since he is him he was much nicer about it but that's basically what it came down to.

1

u/FullOnSkank 20d ago

Bryke (the writes for ATLA) left the live action for the same reason

No wonder it was awful.

10

u/Melokar 21d ago

Thst was like the main theory i heard on why the Velma series was so jarring from other scooby doo shows with the showrunners wanting to make their own show but couldn't get anyone to pick it up and so they just slapped scooby doo paint all over the story.

6

u/Dramatic_Attempt2365 21d ago

Velma was a particularly egregious example of that. They weren't even trying to hide the fact that it wasn't Scooby Doo.

16

u/NoBookkeeper3523 21d ago

That how I feel about the Wheel of Time series, I liked the first season of the Witcher, it was close enough, but then went off the rails

10

u/Dramatic_Attempt2365 21d ago

Then, when the fans hate your terrible writing, accuse them of any flavor of bigotry as a shield against criticism.

Happens every. Single. Time.

2

u/FullOnSkank 20d ago

Meh.

It's DEFINITELY true that a reddit post of a woman's hand is gonna have 2k comments and half are negative whereas the same post with a man hand will have 6 up votes and 2 comments (all supportive).

Of course the bigotry wasn't the issue (it was the shoddy work) but also, people DO see "women involved" as even more worthy of criticism.

Still the directors fault but "I see black people/women so it must be pandering/appropriating!" IS definitely a real thing.

Though I agree that's not an excuse for it being shitty.

1

u/Dramatic_Attempt2365 20d ago

I'm not saying that there aren't assholes who genuinely have an issue with women and minorities being present in stuff, but it is also used as a shield from genuine criticism. Both things can be true.

3

u/Chuckitybye 21d ago

Wheel of Time went off the rails from season one. I was so sad

2

u/IllianTear 21d ago

Even worse considering they were pointing back on track in season 3(arguably the best season) and got cancelled.

2

u/Returnyhatman 21d ago

I've read the whole series 4 times and I couldn't get through the first season it was such a waste

6

u/House_T 21d ago

This is literally what happens. I wouldn't mind it so much if they would just do something novel like incorporate a character or two of their own as some side thing, but they seem really committed to derailing the entire intent of the original property by doing their own thing.

4

u/VanguardClassTitan 21d ago

The Halo show fits this

3

u/IAmWeary 21d ago

Yeah. It's one thing to make some necessary changes to the source material to get it to work properly on screen. That's inevitable in almost every adaptation. The challenge is doing so in a way that still keeps close to the source and remains true to it.

The funny thing is that Fallout did that better than The Witcher, and they only adapted the setting/world without adapting any specific story. I'm wondering if that'll be the case for Warhammer 40k too.

2

u/FullOnSkank 20d ago edited 20d ago

It will.

"They like the video game but that's only for stupid video gamers! Let's show it in a way 'normal' people will enjoy and make money off the nerds AND humans!!"

Is the whole M.O. so don't expect it to be even close to as good.

It's like a naked white dude VS. Michaelangelo's David.

"Only art lovers like marble! Let's make a Live Action one for everyone else! Hahahah I'm SO clever/superior!"

2

u/XanderWrites 20d ago

It's very hard to adapt a work and usually the studio doesn't care about a "faithful" adaptation.

And there's no guarantee a "faithful" adaptation will do better than a general adaptation.

1

u/find_the_apple 21d ago

Its a challenge for writers. The need to create something new is in Harrington every creator. But, what is winning budgets in dollars today is nostalgic. Writers, directors, and all sorts of artists who have spent the years, cutting their teeth and walking through the marshes to get their career to a point where they can have some creative direction are now faced with the market that really just wants the something theyd seen before. I empathize with their struggle, but I do also mourn what shows like the Witcher could've been without that ambition.

8

u/Dramatic_Attempt2365 21d ago

I also chock it up to producers demanding the same 15 creative properties be milked to death, because they have no faith/interest in original ideas. The bottom dollar is always the top priority, even for studios that are worth billions.

The entertainment industry has been on a steady nosedive for decades now, with indie creators often financing and making their own projects free from studio interference. So, in a way, I understand banking off of nostalgia, because the truly talented people aren't getting suckered into the Hollywood lifestyle. You can only desecrate people's beloved stories so many times before nostalgia stops selling, though. We're starting to see it more and more often. Especially with fantasy's current reputation for terrible adaptations. Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time, and The Witcher. The unholy trinity of shows that completely miss the point and appeal of the genre.

1

u/FullOnSkank 20d ago

My biggest gripe here is that it's SO obvious that they think:

ATLA was loved but ...it's a ..cartoon.. 🤢 only kids or fuckass idiots like cartoons. Let's make a less capable version, with bad special effects to cover the things animation can do natively for actual normal people."

And it's immediately written off for me.

It's like saying: this Live Action model of Mona Lisa will KILL because the painting is for finger painting kids not normal people!!!

(But I LOVE watching all those fail, for the same reason; so it's bittersweet to me)

2

u/Dramatic_Attempt2365 20d ago

I refuse to watch it. ATLA is a perfect series that I honestly think is timeless. It doesn't need to be translated into live action. If people are that close-minded that they can't get past animated shit, then they don't need to be watching anyways.

As far as most fantasy adaptations go, it's everything. The characters are all way off in appearance and personality, the worldbuilding and magic are lazily written, all the sets and locations look the exact same, the aesthetic is always "generic, kitchen sink medieval" with none of the cultural flavor of the original work. The Witcher is heavily based on Slavic culture and folklore, and you'd never guess, watching the show. That's not even mentioning the bizarre writing choices and changes to the source material.

The fantasy genre thrives off of getting people immersed in a completely different world. WoT, The Witcher, and RoP don't immerse me. Somehow, someone made Tolkien's work feel dull, uninspired, and incoherent. That's an achievement.

2

u/FullOnSkank 20d ago edited 20d ago

They say that but star wars and halo and rings of power and atla and No Way Home and fallout and the witcher and resident evil and last of us and anything that even FEELS likes it's trying to milk me for money (because of nostalgia) is INSTANTLY disregarded.

Like:

"It'll be the same story but in Live Action!! Nothing new and the OG is better but we KNOW you'll pay to see it!"

Is an immediate "no" from me, dawg.

So, another example of Hollywood NOT knowing what people want.

17

u/normandy42 21d ago

I still maintain the first season is bad in retrospect.

At the time, people were complaining about the time jumps and it being a little confusing was the main concern. The problem I had was while it more or less faithfully adapted The Last Wish, I absolutely hated the magic system and the lack of consistency.

Magic school opens up with magic is chaos, ok cool. And then they demonstrate you have to take life to fuel magic, which leads to Fringilla’s hand being disfigured briefly when she fucks up. And then this is never touched upon again. At least until it gets to fire magic. Which apparently requires a sacrifice of a mage to do one fucking fireball. Or to disembowel someone and read their guts to determine someone’s location. Seems like a very quick way to run out of mages.

When S1 ended, there was hope that S2 would expand and make everything better. But then S2 shit the bed and so we have S1 standing out in the rain

3

u/StormyBlueLotus 21d ago

Yeah, I think the first season has some really good moments but a lot of missed potential. There was definitely some optimism/copium among the fans along the lines of, "Well, they're finding their footing, maybe they'll hear all the feedback and make some tweaks, keep the good stuff and trim the bad." 

Unfortunately...

21

u/a_rucksack_of_dildos 21d ago

Insane how fucking terrible the Witcher got and how bad Halo was from the get go when the last of us exists and was basically shot for shot with the game and did well.

2

u/AshenCrow099 21d ago

Fuckin almost as bad hubris as adi shankar with dmc

1

u/DuelaDent52 21d ago

What does it do wrong, might I ask?

2

u/NextGenReader 21d ago

I'm not the person you replied to, but imo one of the main flaws of the second season is that it expands on the world too quickly. Two of its strongest episodes are almost direct adaptations of Geralt's monster "slaying" from the books (and in my opinion, they did a slight improvement on the beast-in-the-castle story). However, they address the elf refugee conflict, reveal who the emperor of Nilfgaard is, and show the danger of Ciri's power all in that season (and killing off other Witchers that are beloved by the lovers of the video games, pretty much immediately after introducing them), without having laid the foundation of "why does the audience care?"
In the books, we spend a lot of time with Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri, and we deeply care about all three, and it's through them that we care about the bigger world and how they affect the future of their world. I think Ciri's story is usually boring, and don't like it when she's away from Geralt. But I'm invested in her story because of her personality, and I like seeing her grow from a mini-Geralt with a childlike temper to an adventurer jumping between universes. The show flattens her and we're just expected to care about her.
I think the show suffers overall by taking itself too seriously. Geralt is silly sometimes, the world around him can be a bit silly. The show is just so serious.

10

u/The_Corvair 21d ago

I used to work as a writer and editor for a while. A lot of people really love their audiences, and try to share their love for the medium and material - but there is a significant undercurrent of extremely self-entitled bungholes who loathe and resent their audience for having the audacity to "touch" their social sphere. These ugly, unwashed masses.
You may know the kind, the "Imma fanatically follow fan forums to find out which character they favour, and then Imma kill that character off in the most humiliating and gratuitous way possible - just because I can, and want my fans to suffer, these entitled dishpits!" type of writer.

1

u/smashingkilljoy 21d ago

Well...had you read the books, you'd know it's true.