What are the Worst Casting Decisions that have ever been made?

[Captain Syrup]

terminator tv series

It’s massively overrated among Terminator fans. It has more in common with Genysis, which is the worst Terminator film.

 

[Lobster Cult High Priest]

Orlando Bloom in "Kingdom of Heaven".

Movie would be pure Kino if Jeremy Irons character was the main character.

 

[ZMOT]

I feel bad for the dude. He got so much shit for that role, how much of it can be attributed to Lucas’ shitty directing or the fact he just wasn’t a very good actor overall. He wasn’t right for the role, it fucked him up mentally over the years because manchild faggots kept harassing him, shitty situation all around

necro reply, but just for the record: https://archive.ph/20240313020501/h...ife-saga-of-star-wars-child-actor-jake-lloyd/

Lisa is also eager to dispel what she says is a common misconception: that an avalanche of negative reaction to "The Phantom Menace" drove Jake to quit acting and contributed to his mental illness.
“It would have happened anyway,” Lisa insists, pointing to a history of schizophrenia on his biological father’s side of the family. “I believe that it was genetic. And his psychiatrist also agrees that Jake was going to become schizophrenic.”
She also insists that in 1999, Jake was largely shielded from the toxic vitriol swirling around the prequel film.
“I protected him from the backlash. He was just riding his bike outside, playing with his friends. He didn't know. He didn't care,” Lisa said. “Everybody makes such a big deal about that. And it's rather annoying to me because Jake was a little kid when that came out, and he didn't really feel all that stuff because I didn't let him online.”

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

necro reply, but just for the record: https://archive.ph/20240313020501/h...ife-saga-of-star-wars-child-actor-jake-lloyd/

It should always be noted that former child stars are at the end of the day human and aren't really all that different from that weird uncle or brother you had.

 

[toilet_rainbow]

It should always be noted that former child stars are at the end of the day human and aren't really all that different from that weird uncle or brother you had.

This is one I never really got the hatred for. 10 year old Jake Lloyd played the 10 year old boy he was? And 10 year old boys can be very annoying little shits even when they have good intentions. The Phantom Menace has many problems, but something like Jar Jar is much more glaring to me than Anakin being annoying little boy. Especially since you see much more Jar Jar than you do Anakin.

 

[Dante Alighieri]

Zendaya in anything at all

 

[MadStan]

Mark Wahlberg

 

[Sniperwoof]

There was absolutely nothing wrong with Jake Loyd. He was hired to play an awkward annoying ten year old boy and he played an awkward annoying ten year old boy.

What did people expect? Vader? Anakin wasn't Darth Vader when he was ten.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Anakin

Absolutely generic and unnecessary. Kind of like the entire PT.

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

For my own contribution I'd say most of The Expanse is miscast.

Drummer, Thomas Jane, and Avarsarala were perfect.

Amos was too young and not grizzled and fucked up enough

Holden was a bit too on the soy side

Naomi was fine, Draper was fine, Kamal was fine

Both the Mao girls were shit.

It is simply astounding how Chalamet and Zendaya do not have chemistry with each other when it's a core pillar of those movies, book-tisms aside. That sort of thing should have been nipped in the bud during table reads. Between Villenueve's characterizations and his hate for dialogue, I do think he's autistic and that's why his sci-fi movies suffer. He makes fantastic visual effects at the cost of everything else: characters, plot, pacing, score. He very clearly doesn't care about any of those things and they suffer as a result. Dune and BR 2049 really is a case of "a special effect without a story is a very boring thing." Call old James Cameron a hack, but he knows how to keep a story moving and keep all aforementioned elements good enough.

I do not understand the Dune hype. I fell asleep halfway through and had no desire to finish it.

 

[Overly Serious]

It is simply astounding how Chalamet and Zendaya do not have chemistry with each other when it's a core pillar of those movies, book-tisms aside. That sort of thing should have been nipped in the bud during table reads.

I agree she doesn't bring much to the role though I think Chalamet was well cast, personally. However, imo, the real problem with Chani in the film is that unlike in the book where she is bloodthirsty for vengeance and encourages Paul's jihad, they make her this stand-in sanity character who always knows better. It doesn't really fit.

Garret dillahunt in the terminator tv series as chromartie. He's alright in some roles but holy shit as a terminator he comes off as borderline retarded and acts in a way that should be setting off alarm bells with everyone he encounters. Especially when he's supposed to be posing as an FBI agent

Good Lord do I disagree with this one. I thought he was excellent. Especially as you see him both as a real human and as a terminator. And (deep spoilers) In the second season what we see of him he's not even a terminator in there and I thought he was very effective as John Henry.

In all, I thought that show had superb casting. Lena Headly is obviously fantastic in the role of Sarah Connor and heretical though this is, I think she's a better Sarah Connor than Linda Hamilton. Jessie in S2 is a perfect combination of beauty and beast and one of those rare instances on TV you believe a slight woman can beat the living shit out of a large man because she's just so brutally cold as a character. Her entire mission is just heartless in how she goes about it. Summer Glau grew on me as the series went on. I think that was more that the writers found their pace and level with her after the pilot. Derek is very good. Shirley Manson was on a knife edge in terms of performance as it could go one way or another as a very complex role. Ultimately I think she was very good. Agent Ellison was just very laconic the entire time and though not bad, perhaps didn't bring as much as he could have. Just almost no vulnerability in a character who really should have been feeling very out of his depth and isolated as the story went on.

Thomas Dekker as John Connor I thought did a very good job. It's a really tough role to play just from the concept. You have to show both someone who believably could be this great leader whilst at the same time being a kid and a follower (of his mother) for much of the show. I've also watched the commentaries on blu-ray and his sheer enthusiasm and engagement is really rewarding. He thinks about what the listener might want to know and points out things like "we're recording this before the finale airs so we don't know at this point if we'll be renewed" or "so we get the scripts ___ this much in advance and didn't know when we filmed this bit if _______". All in all, I can find very litle to fault that show on with casting. I'm surprised you disliked Cromartie that much. Yes, Cromartie has flaws impersonating a human but if you compare him to the Arnie terminator he's a step forward from that. Kind of a half-way stage between Arnie and the later models which I think it what they were going for.

Okay, super-long response but it's one of my favourite shows. It went a bit sketchy in the middle of S2 because of a writer's strike I think, but other than that was a lot of fun.

So one of mine? Al Pacino in The Messenger. I think they titled this movie different in the USA but it's the Joan of Arc (who was not Noah's wife) movie done by Luc Besson staring Mija Jovovich. I think it's her best role by far and I reject people saying she can't act - most of her movies frankly don't require it. I thought she was good in this as was John Malkovich as the Dauphine. What I didn't like was Dustin Hoffman at the end who alone in the movie doesn't even attempt a French accent but talks in his regular and distinctive American drawl and also just acts pretty disinterested. I get what the director was going for in the jarring disconnect with his character but for me, just plonking Dustin Hoffman in the role didn't work. It was weird. And who names their child Dustin, seriously?

 

[Pedophobe]

Mark Wahlberg

He was great alongside Samuel L. Jackson in that bad cop movie though, the one with Tupac and David Carradine and the dude from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

 

[Rock hard as a Flintstone]

Tom hardy as Mel Gibson. It just didn't sit right for me.

 

[Calandrino]

How about Peter Bark as Ordinary Little Boy in the zombie flick Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror

Spoiler

 

[Evil Peter Griffin]

Everyone in the Borderlands movie.

 

[Dick Johnson]

I'm surprised so many posts in this thread are about the horribly miscast Laureline and Valerian movie. I know it's one of the classic Franco-Belgian BD series, but I didn't think people would be so invested in it to be upset over a shitty movie adaptation.

It's less the attachment to the original comic and more that the movie had a lot going for it in terms of visuals, sci-fi ideas and action scenes. It was never going to be a great movie without significant changes to the script, but changing the leads to better looking, more charismatic actors in their mid-to-late 30's would have helped out a fair bit on its own.

DeHaan and Delevigne looked like they'd been cast as the leads of a ennui-filled movie about directionless 20something alcoholics, not as seasoned space agents.

 

[Overly Serious]

Stephen Fry in anything, really. But as this is the worst casting thread not the general dislike thread, I'll focus on one specific role I think he was terrible in. The Hobbit trilogy parts 1&2. He's a comedian (technically) and presenter far more than he is an actor, and his camp over the top performance really jarred when set against actual actors. And it's not as though the script didn't have some stupid slapstick in it but he's a level beyond that again.

Meanwhile you had Lee Pace in the same movie acting everybody offscreen as Thrandruil. Stephen Fry was so inappropriate it actually takes me out of the movie.

 

[Chongqing]

In most TV commercials I see with homeowners of large houses, their realtors, and even CEOs of companies, they're depicted only by black people.

By watching TV, you'd think the USA had the demographics of Africa.

 

[Not A Bunny]

A bit late to the Dune party, but Zendaya was bad, agreed. However, I'll add Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista to the pile.

There are popular actors that made an attempt to blend into the environment (Javier Bardem ftw), and there are people that are too contemporary (and aren't good enough actors) to make it work. I'm sorry, you can tell which actors Villeneuve was forced to include.

DeHaan and Delevigne looked like they'd been cast as the leads of a ennui-filled movie about directionless 20something alcoholics, not as seasoned space agents.

I don't know anything about DeHaan, but it's fairly evident that Delevigne is some sort of nepo baby even if you know nothing about her. She's the least compelling "actress" I've seen in a very long time.

Stephen Fry

He's a natural narrator. Thus, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Everything else...meh.

 

[Cougar Pump]

Mark Wahlberg

Worked fine in Shooter and The Departed. If you need to cast a dumb cunt with big ego he was the go-to man in the mid 2000s.