Recast Your Favorite (or Least-Favorite) Movies!

[Ingrid]

As of right now, I only have one small cast change: After Richard Harris passed, I would have liked to have seen Peter O'Toole as Dumbledore.

[V]

OOOO!

That would have worked like gangbusters... as much as I love Michael Gambon, he did not really do it for me.

[Ed Hocken]

In 2006, many wondered what Edgar Wright would do next after the cult success of Hot Fuzz. In the second part of the blood and ice cream trilogy. Wright takes the classic trope of a rag tag bunch of misfits against an evil television exec who wants to do nothing more but shut down a little seen channel at the BBC.

Edgar Wright's UHF

George Newman - Simon Pegg
Stanley Spidowski - Nick Frost
Noodles Macintosh - Toby Jones
Uncle Harvey - Jim Broadbent
Philo - David Tennant
R. J. Fletcher - Matt Berry
Pamela Finklestein - Cahterine Tate
Teri - Jessica Stevenson


With cameos by Ben Kingsely in Gandhi II, Stephen Fry as the owner of Spatula City, Russell Brand as host of Raul's Wild Kingdom, Kevin Eldon in the role made famous by Emo Phillips, and the voice of Robbie Coltrane as Mr. Big.

[Ed Hocken]

Also for the John Landis' Wet Hot American Summer

Phil Hartman as Gene

[Timothy225]

After the overwhelming success of the late 70's and early 80's Superman series, AKA Superman: The Movie, Superman 2, Superman 3: Brainiac Attacks! and the World's Finest crossover flick, Warner Bros., to the surprise of many, decided to take a risk on a hugely popular British comic as a new franchise.

Negotiating an eventual takeover deal with IPC Media for the Fleetway line of comics in 1986 (later to be merged under WB's DC Comics division), work began on the now infamous, but critically and commercially successful Judge Dredd.

Released on the tenth anniversary of the character's debut, with a world premiere in London, the film solidified the power base of James Cameron, enhanced the already legendary career of Clint Eastwood (most insiders were astonished he would take the role, but his comments of Dredd being a "Dirty Harry for a darker age" quieted even the most vocal naysayers), and kept audiences glued to their seats despite the tremendous amounts of violence and bloodshed on display.

Clocking in at an unprecedented 3 hours and given the MPAA's first "Hard R" rating, the film chronicled (for the most part) the first important Dredd storyline (The Robot Wars), allowing Cameron to add in elements he only briefly touched on in his first Terminator film. Though there was some hue and cry from some of the more die-hard Dredd fans with some of the robot redesigns (Call-Me-Kenneth survived pretty much unscathed design-wise, though there is still a passionate argument in regards to the revamping of Walter the Wobot amongst fans to this day), such elements seemed to fit seamlessly into Cameron's vision of Mega-City 1.

Also, cinemaphiles continue to hold deep discussions over the story's allegorical parallels between the film's robots and slavery in the pre-Civil War US, as well as modern day civil rights themes.

Clint Eastwood as Judge Joe Dredd
Denzel Washington as Judge Giant
Charlton Heston as Judge Griffin
Gary Oldman as Judge Cal (Oldman would take center stage in the sequel Judge Dredd: The Day The Law Died)
Robin Williams as the voice of Call-Me-Kenneth
Mel Blanc as the voice of Walter the Wobot
Sondra Locke as Judge Anderson (cameo)

[Ed Hocken]

It's the late 1980s and after being inspired by The King of Comedy and a mountain of cocaine. Robin Williams is joined with Martin Scorsese, on a screenplay by none other than Paul Schrader:

1988s Observe and Report

Robin Williams: Ronnie Barnhardt
Michael Keaton: Detective Harrison
Luis Guzman: Dennis
Bobcat Goldwaith: The Flasher
Sam Kinison: The Toast a Bun Manager
Michelle Pfeiffer: Nell
Sean Young: Brandi
Jon Cryer: Bruce

With Andrew Dice Clay as one of the gang members who beats the shit out of Williams during a drug buy.

Critics dismissed the movie mainly they felt was a rehash of Taxi Driver and years later Williams cited it as one of the reasons he stopped doing blow. Still, it remains a cult classic to a select few as it was the first time Williams stepped outside his usual schtick and into more serious roles.

[Anderson]

Part 2 of 2

1976.

After being contracted to work for American Zoetrope, Sam Peckinpah decides to pick through Coppola's backlog of scripts. Coppola is in ill health and decides to pass on Apocalypse Now to the veteran filmmaker. Taking a year to collect information on Vietnam and to reflect with a variety of filmmakers including Samuel Fuller, Walon Green and John Milius...Peckinpah sits out in the South Pacific area to recreate the original Lucas/Milius script.


CAST:

Willard - Kris Kristofferson
Kurtz - Lee Marvin
Kilgore - Steve McQueen
Chef - Warren Oates
Lance - Gary Busey
Clean - Kevin Hooks
Chief Phillips - Joe Don Baker
The Photojournalist - Bob Dylan


The film's soundtrack by Bob Dylan would go on to be nominated for Best Album of the Year at the Grammys. The mix of his mid 70s style going into the Jew for Jesus phase captured a place in time that Dylan would never rediscover.

The film faired well at the Box Office, then went largely ignored outside of acting noms during Award Season.

Peckinpah took it as a personal slight and never worked with Coppola again. Spending his later years working on New World Productions and music videos, Peckinpah vowed to be his own man.

Upon Peckinpah's death, Paramount/Zoetrope saw fit to release his original cut of the film entitled Apocalypse Now Defined. A 4 hour and 2 minutes long epic, Peckinpah brought Vietnam to life for a generation that grew up in its shadow.

[FilmNerdJamie]

FUN FACT: At the film's premiere, Adam West yelled at the screen during the infamous Joker rape scene: "WHAT THE COCK IS THIS SHIT?!?" Thus, that's how that particular phrase was born.

Apparently the only reason West got an invite was because of the clout he gained from the smash hit TV series Lookwell.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Phil just made an awesome suggestion: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, directed by John Milius and released in 1984.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Following their minor success with Crank, the writing/directing duo of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor put their energy toward a strange hybrid of illegal street racing, schlocky revenge movies from the 1970s/1980s and the indie comic-book scene:

Neveldine/Taylor's The Wraith in 3D.

Jake Gyllenhaal - Jake Kesey / The Wraith
Ben Foster - Packard Walsh
Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Keri Johnson
Mickey Rourke - Sheriff Loomis
Patton Oswalt - Rughead
Joseph Gordon Levitt - Billy Hankins

Released during the cinematic dead-zone of January 2009, The Wraith becomes the third of three films dumped by that time period (with the vastly more successful Taken and Paul Blart: Mall Cop) to find an audience and earns a solid $77 million. It also benefits from a promotional tie-in with NASCAR featuring specially-cut TV spots air in heavy rotation and the slick vehicles are displayed during races with members of the cast in attendance.

Its success (especially on the home video market) leads to Neveldine/Taylor being initially hired by Warner Brothers for Jonah Hex. However months of disagreements with the studio over tone causes the project to fall apart and the duo decide to take all their work done up for Hex (including their leading man) and "make their own damn western" independently:

Neveldine/Taylor’s Escape From New York.

Josh Brolin – Snake Plissken
Clint Eastwood - Bob Hauk*
Robbie Coltrane - Cabbie
Brian Cox - The President of the United States
Idris Elba – The Duke of New York
Will Arnett - Harold "Brain" Hellman
Maria Bello - Maggie

Despite a hard push from the Internet and various movie-news sites (who supply many advanced screenings to spread the word), Escape is met with mixed reviews and subpar box-office results when its released in April 2010.

* Eastwood only agrees to appear as a favor to Brolin, commenting how "fucking crazy" Neveldine and Taylor were after their first meeting.

[V]

If someone does not rep this man right godsdamn now for Idris Elba as the Duke, I will end you...

[Timothy225]

Paul Reubens and Tim Burton were flying high after the surprising success of Pee Wee's Big Adventure, so much so that both of them could pretty much write their own ticket in terms of their next project. Assuming a sequel would be on the docket, Reubens and Burton shocked everyone with a total genre change, eschewing madcap comedy for a multi-million dollar epic of metaphysical and sociopolitical science fiction.

Tim Burton's DUNE

Paul Reubens as Duke Leto Atredies
Corey Haim as Paul Atredies
Mia Sara as Chani
Marilu Henner as Lady Jessica
Buster Poindexter as Thufir Hawat
Charlie Sheen as Duncan Idaho
Michael Keaton as Gurney Halleck
Corey Feldman as Feyd Rautha
Brian Blessed as Baron Harkonnen
Judd Nelson as The Beast Rabban
Helen Mirren as The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam

Though the production went surprisingly well and under busget, Mirren, Blessed and Keaton refused to do interviews during and after the film's release. Blessed, to this day, refuses to quote any dialogue or even admit he was even in the flick (a shame since his line "He who controls the SPICE controls the UNIVERSE!" is still quoted almost 3 decades after the film was released).

Frank Herbert's dramatic on-air suicide during his red carpet interview, followed by the torching of Mann's Chinese Theatre after the final frames unspooled (the phrase "Fuck Burton, fuck Pee Wee, and fuck you, Hollywood!" by a rabid and blood-spattered Raquel Welch is still used today to express severe disappointment).

The heads of Burton and Reubens were never found and the film itself was never released officially after the tragedy of opening night. Bootleg VHS tapes do exist, but are very scarce to come by, and it is advised that such copies not be presented to any of the surviving stars of the film for autographing.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Brian Blessed as Baron Harkonnen

Oh. God. YES!

[Anderson]

Phil just made an awesome suggestion: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, directed by John Milius and released in 1984.

I can handle this one later.

[Anderson]

MGM/UA

(1984)

Hotshot British graphic novel writer Alan Moore has recently turned his back on an exclusive offer at DC. Having attracted the eye of Hollywood following his work adapting his Swamp Thing run into Hollywood's first X-Rated Horror Hit, Moore has an unpublished effort that will skip the comic book page.

Pulling together classic icons of British literature, Moore imagines a Superteam for the ages. Initially pitched to John Boorman, Alan Moore quickly balked at the director's ideas. That's when he MGM brought in John Milius. Milius is a big fan of manly lit and therefore decided to throw his hat in the ring. The previously announced "Red Dawn" has been postponed, so the studio can focus more on recutting "Invasion U.S.A." and keeping it from being delayed until 1Q 1985.

Given carte blance by the studio, Milius and Moore have crafted a tale to last the ages.

CAST:

Alan Quartermain - Robert Mitchum
Mina Murray - Susan Sarandon
Hawley Griffin - Malcolm McDowell
Captain Nemo - Roshan Seth
Dr. Jekyll - Stephen Collins
Edward Hyde - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Campion Bond - Denholm Elliot
Professor Moriarty - Oliver Reed
Fu Manchu - Mako
Mycroft Holmes - Sean Connery


The film was given an X four times by the MPAA, before Milius agreed to cuts. After trimming 11 minutes from the final product, the film was given a release in early August 1984. Facing a rise in ratings scrutiny, political groups targeted the MPAA for letting such a violent movie escape with an R rating at all.

It's also cited as starting a new movement in World Literature of re-examining classic lit through a modern filter. Alan Moore would later movie into indie cinema, as he got the chance to direct his erotic classic "Lost Girls". The film is still banned in 24 countries.