The five worst recastings in cinema history
You can write the best fictional character of all time, but if there isn’t a great actor around to play them, they’ll never get off the page. This is why recastings are such a hot-button topic in cinema. Sometimes they are unavoidable, as an actor might have a scheduling issue or fall ill, or some such, but, more often than not, they strike fear into the hearts of fans.
It doesn’t always go badly, though. Michael Gambon was a fantastic Albus Dumbledore, following the death of Richard Harris (apart from that moment in The Goblet of Fire), and it’s hard to remember a time when the MCU’s James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes was played by Terrence Howard instead of Don Cheadle.
However, this list isn’t about those examples. It’s about the times when a character was so badly recast that they basically killed their entire film. Fans rejected them left, right, and centre, as they simply weren’t the famous faces they were used to seeing.
For the purpose of this list, a ‘recasting’ is when a new actor is brought in to play a character in a series previously portrayed by somebody else. You won’t see the likes of Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, as that was a remake, nor Brandon Routh as Superman, as while Superman Returns was technically a continuation of the original films, it felt significantly different. Now that that’s clear, let’s look into some terrible recasting choices.
The five worst recasting choices in cinema:
Julianne Moore as Clarice Starling – ‘Hannibal’ (Ridley Scott, 2001)
The Silence of the Lambs is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, and it has the awards to prove it. It famously swept the board at the Oscars, winning in all of the ‘Big Five’ categories, including ‘Best Picture’. One of those awards went to Jodie Foster, who snagged ‘Best Actress’ for her role as naïve FBI agent Clarice Starling. This is why, when it was announced that Foster wasn’t returning for the next film in the franchise, alarm bells began to ring.
Hannibal had all the makings of another stellar movie. Ridley Scott would serve as director, while Anthony Hopkins was back as Dr Hannibal Lecter, this time with a far more enhanced position in the story. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t the same with Jodie. Julianne Moore, who was chosen as the new Clarice, just couldn’t match the misplaced enthusiasm that her predecessor brought to the role. She also lacked the appropriate chemistry with Hopkins, which, unfortunately, was a core tenet of the narrative. Her performance was roundly criticised; one of many reasons the film failed to live up to expectations.
Robert Burke as Alex Murphy – ‘RoboCop 3′<em> </em>(Fred Dekker, 1993)
On the surface, RoboCop is just another shooty, explodey action movie with a cool main character and nothing else. However, the first film in the franchise is a lot deeper than you’d think. Alex Murphy, the police officer who eventually becomes the titular character after suffering massive injuries, is very sympathetic. He mourns the loss of his humanity, the life he could have had. Part of his appeal comes from Peter Weller’s excellent portrayal of Murphy, a character he returned to for the film’s first sequel. Sadly, by the time movie number three came around, he’d moved on to other things.
Robert Burke was brought in to replace the absent Weller, but couldn’t match him in terms of emotion. It didn’t help that the costume the new actor had to wear had been made with the old one in mind, so Burke spent most of the shooting process in great discomfort. Perhaps the studio was hoping audiences would focus more on the suit than the man inside it, but the difference between the two Murphys was clear as day. RoboCop 2 hadn’t been great, but RoboCop 3 was a complete disaster.
Emily Mortimer as Mrs Brown – ‘Paddington in Peru’ (Dougal Wilson, 2024)
This one really isn’t Emily Mortimer’s fault. She’s a great actor, and her calm, welcoming presence made her the perfect fit for the role of Mrs Mary Brown in the Paddington franchise. As the matriarch of the Brown family, who adopt the troublemaking bear into their ranks, she played a pivotal role in the series’ third film, Paddington in Peru. There was just one problem: she wasn’t Sally Hawkins.
Hawkins played Mrs Brown in the first two films and delivered a stunning job. She is the epitome of motherly, nice and comforting without ever stepping into the realm of cringe. Her relationship with Paddington is pivotal to the homely feel of the franchise. When it was revealed that she wouldn’t be in Paddington in Peru, fans wondered how they were going to pull the film off without one of its key components. In short, they didn’t. It just didn’t feel right that Mortimer was there, feigning a bond with the title character. It didn’t help that the film included flashbacks to previous instalments, poorly edited to remove Hawkins from them and substitute in Mortimer’s voice. This sort of deception just isn’t what Paddington is about.
French Stewart as Marv – ‘Home Alone 4’ (Rod Daniel, 2002)
When Macaulay Culkin wasn’t available/not cute enough anymore for Home Alone 3, the filmmakers made the correct decision to tell a different story with a new character at the centre. They then unlearned this lesson for Home Alone 4 (also known as Taking Back the House). ‘Kevin McCallister’ returned for this new adventure, this time played by Mike Weinberg. It feels wrong to pick on poor Weinberg for the crime of starring in a movie, but luckily, there’s an adult we can pick on instead!
Not only did this straight-to-TV affair decide to bring back Kevin, but it also reintroduced Daniel Stern’s Marv as one of the villains. French Stewart (who also replaced Matthew Broderick in the second Inspector Gadget movie) took on the role, but, like everything else about this godforsaken venture, he just felt like a cheap imitation. Clare Carey also deserves a mention for her portrayal of Kate McCallister, Kevin’s mother. While she’s in a severely reduced role this time around, she and her relationship with her son are key parts of the first two Home Alone films. Carey just couldn’t pull that off here, providing yet another reason to give this cursed sequel a pass.
Ken Kirzinger as Jason Voorhees – ‘Freddy vs Jason’ (Ronny Yu, 2003)
It’s easy to assume that playing a big, hulking monster with no lines is a walk in the park. That simply isn’t true. One only has to look at the great Boris Karloff’s work as Frankenstein’s monster to see just how charismatic a horror star can be without saying a single word. Another example of this can be found in the Friday the 13th franchise and its villain, Jason Voorhees. The hulking killer has been played by several different performers in its time, but the widely agreed-upon pinnacle is Kane Hodder.
The gargantuan Hodder played Jason in four films back-to-back, beginning with Part VII: New Blood. When the series returned from a long hiatus with Freddy vs Jason, fans expected their killer of choice to step back into the role. Instead, newcomer Ken Kirzinger took the part, facing off against Robert Englund’s character from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Kirzinger lacked any of the nuance and idiosyncrasies that Hodder had picked up in his time under the hockey mask. Jason has only appeared in one more movie since this cruddy crossover, although Hodder did reprise his role for a video in 2017.
