John Goodman begged to be recast in ‘The Flintstones’: “Please don’t make me do any more”
John Goodman is one of Hollywood’s finest character actors of the past four decades—a reliable presence in both film and television. Whether he’s popping up in Coen brothers films or making audiences laugh for decades as Dan Conner on Roseanne and its follow-up The Conners, Goodman has always delivered.
Interestingly, though, there was one character he was dead set against playing again—the anti-Dan Conner, if you will. Goodman played the role once and then begged his famous producer not to bring him back for the inevitable sequel.
This tale of woe began when Goodman attended a table read for Always, a 1989 romantic fantasy directed by Steven Spielberg. The movie reunited Spielberg with his Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind star Richard Dreyfuss, and Goodman got his first experience working with the master filmmaker. However, when the cast sat down for the first table read, Goodman was unintentionally embarrassed by Spielberg, and it left him feeling he was on the hook to play a future role he had no interest in.
In 2020, Goodman told GQ, “So, on the day of the first table read, he [Spielberg] goes, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to say something before we start. I’ve found my Fred Flintstone.'”
Around this time, Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment had bought the rights to make a big-screen version of the classic 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Flintstones. The project had been in development hell for a few years prior, but Spielberg was hopeful he would finally get it across the finishing line. A key part in that, obviously, was casting the perfect actor to play the Stone Age working man Fred, and Spielberg was adamant Goodman was the man for the job.
Unfortunately, Goodman knew nothing about Spielberg’s intention to cast him as the rotund quarry worker, and if the iconic director had asked him first, he’d have said he didn’t want to do it. In addition, being put on the spot in front of an entire table of actors working on a completely different movie wasn’t fun.
Goodman admitted, “It just took the wind out of me. It’s not something I was looking forward to doing. Yeah, I felt like I was sandbagged.”
Ultimately, Goodman did play Fred in 1994’s The Flintstones, which was an enormous hit at the box office, but it was reviled by critics. Goodman found himself taking flak for a movie he was strong-armed into in the first place, and it didn’t sit well with him. So, when it came time for Amblin to think about sequels, Goodman made it crystal clear that he wanted out.
Direct Brian Levant admitted to Total Film in 2024 that Amblin wanted to use the same tactic on Flintstones sequels that it had used to great success with Back To The Future Part II and III, which were shot back to back. A horrified Goodman realised this would mean he’d have to play Fred twice more in quick succession, and he wanted no part of it.
Levant claimed the actor actually made an appointment with Spielberg and pleaded, “Please don’t make me do any more of these”. When asked by SyFy Wire why he thought Goodman was so opposed to reprising his role, though, Levant chuckled, “I think it came down to one thing: people coming up to him in airports and going ‘Yabba-dabba-doo!’ He didn’t like it…But it would have been worth a hefty paycheque.”
Ultimately, plans for these quickfire sequels fell through, and Levant reworked the sequel idea into a prequel. The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas took six years to see the light of day, with none of the cast returning to their parts. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was received even more poorly than the first film – vindicating Goodman’s decision to walk away.
