Nothing irritates actors or their fans more than a controversial recast. Venture into any Fantastic Beasts hashtag or the YouTube comments section of its latest trailer, and Johnny Depp fans will flood you with comments condemning his departure from the franchise.
It often becomes a poisoned chalice for the film itself, such as when fans quickly expressed their anger at the idea of a The Mummy movie without Rachel Weisz, or a new Nightmare on Elm Street film without the original Freddy Krueger.
Many times, it’s the actors themselves who voice their displeasure, from Terrence Howard’s frustrations with Marvel to Julia Sawalha’s disappointment over her exit from the Chicken Run sequel.
Money is often the root of these problems, but it can be said that other situations are much more exasperating: scheduling conflicts, feuds, a voice that apparently sounds “too old.”
We have gathered 12 cases in which actors were replaced in sequels or reboots of beloved films, leading to all sorts of grievances…
Johnny Depp in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
Days after the British High Court found that a news report labeling him a “wife-beater” was “substantially true,” Johnny Depp announced that Warner Bros had asked him to resign from the Fantastic Beasts franchise. The actor had portrayed the villain Gellert Grindelwald in two films, and Mads Mikkelsen stepped in to replace him in the third film, The Secrets of Dumbledore. The move sparked a significant amount of outrage on Twitter, where there were hashtag campaigns proclaiming support for Depp and others promising to boycott the rest of the Fantastic Beasts series unless the actor was reinstated.
Robin Williams in Aladdin 2
Robin Williams’ voice role as the Genie in Aladdin is possibly the most famous animated performance in film history. Less well-known is the war between Williams and Disney that followed the film’s release. The actor publicly condemned the corporation after claiming it ignored his request to use his voice solely for the film and not for their merchandise. “I just don’t want to sell anything,” Williams said in 1993, “not Burger King, not toys, not stuff.”
Initially, Disney denied making such an arrangement with the actor and sent him a Picasso painting valued at $1 million as a peace offering. That did not work, and Williams refused to return for the direct-to-video sequel The Return of Jafar. After mistakenly assuming they could simply replace Williams in the role (the voice actor who plays Homer Simpson, Dan Castellaneta, was chosen), Disney admitted it had ignored Williams’ request regarding the use of his voice and publicly apologized. Satisfied with the apology, Williams later returned for the sequel Aladdin and the King of Thieves in 1996.
Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2
When Iron Man 2 arrived in 2010, one of the main cast members looked very different. Don Cheadle accepted the role of War Machine, despite Terrence Howard having played it in the first film. The change was controversial, with reports claiming that Howard and Marvel had fought over money. Other reports stated that Howard, being the first actor cast for Iron Man, was paid significantly more than all the other cast members, including star Robert Downey Jr, something Marvel sought to rectify for the sequel.
“They came to me for the second [film] and said: ‘Look, we will pay you an eighth of what it says in your contract, because we believe the second one will succeed with or without you,’” Howard stated in 2013. Howard also claimed that Marvel used what would have been his salary to increase Downey Jr’s pay and that Downey Jr had deliberately ignored his calls when he sought his help with renegotiating his contract. The situation was decidedly murky and remains one of the ugliest episodes in Marvel’s casting history.
Julia Sawalha in Chicken Run 2
The long-awaited sequel to Chicken Run faced bad press in 2020 when the lead from the first film, Julia Sawalha, claimed she’d been removed from the sequel. Sawalha stated she had been told that her voice sounded “too old” compared to how it sounded in the original film. “They want a younger actress to take over the role,” Sawalha wrote in a statement. “I’m passionate about my work and I’m not going down without a fight, so I did my own voice test at home and sent it to the producers… However, they said: ‘We will proceed to cast someone else for the voice of Ginger.’ I feel I’ve been tricked… To say I’m devastated and furious would be an understatement. I feel completely powerless.” Sawalha ended up being replaced in the role of Ginger by Thandiwe Newton, while Aardman Animation declined to comment on the change.
Rachel Weisz in The Mummy 3
Reports suggest Weisz turned down the opportunity to reprise the role that made her a star for a third The Mummy film because she was unhappy with the script. You can’t blame her: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor received poor reviews and then faded away without a trace in 2008. Fans also disliked that Maria Bello, who adopted a twisted British accent for the film, simply replaced Weisz in her role. “I think Rachel is so brilliant and was gorgeous in that role, but they wrote my character so differently that I felt like it was a totally different woman,” Bello explained. “She has the same name, but it’s a pretty different character.” The audience noticed and rebelled.
Rachelle Lefevre in Twilight
Lefevre was cast to portray the coven leader Victoria in the Twilight films, and midway through the franchise, she was replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard. It was a controversial decision, and both Lefevre and producer Summit Entertainment spoke about it to the press. “I’m deeply hurt by Summit’s surprising decision to move forward without me,” Lefevre said in a statement after insisting her involvement in the film Barney’s Version would not overlap with the production dates of the Twilight sequel, Eclipse. Summit disagreed and wrote in their own statement that Lefevre demonstrated a “lack of cooperative spirit” by allegedly accepting the role in Barney’s Version without consulting them first. Meanwhile, Howard kept herself out of it and revealed in 2017 that she and Lefevre had a cordial relationship and that the casting decision “had nothing to do with [them],” adding: “Nothing comes between women, and she is amazing.”
John Goodman and Rick Moranis in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
Neither Goodman nor Moranis had a contract to make a sequel to the 1994 hit The Flintstones, which meant Universal Pictures had to manage without them for 2000’s Viva Rock Vegas. To remedy the situation, Universal made the film a prequel and recruited the decidedly lesser-powered pair of Mark Addy and Stephen Baldwin to play Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. They failed to impress audiences, and the film was a colossal flop, ultimately leading to the downfall of the entire franchise.
Kathleen Cauley and Jennifer Smith in Harry Potter
In the early Harry Potter films, the Hogwarts student Lavender Brown was played by two Black actresses, Kathleen Cauley and Jennifer Smith, who were practically extras. By the time Lavender’s role in the series became more significant, and she had actual dialogue, it made sense to replace them, particularly with a more experienced actress. But the series faced backlash from fans for choosing white actress Jessie Cave for the role, and Warner Bros never explained why the decision was made to change the character’s race just as she began to have a greater role.
Ryan Gosling in The Lovely Bones
Gosling looked set for Oscar attention after signing on to play a grieving father in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones. However, Gosling was fired days after production began and was replaced by Mark Wahlberg. Rumors circulated about the firing, and it was reported that Jackson was unhappy with Gosling’s decision to bulk up for the role. Years later, Gosling seemed to confirm the speculation, saying he and Jackson “had a different idea of how the character should look.” He continued: “I really thought I should weigh 210 pounds [95 kilograms]. We didn’t talk much during the preproduction process, which was the problem… I showed up on set and I got it wrong. So I ended up fat and unemployed.”
Crispin Glover in Back to the Future Part II
Glover is standout in the first Back to the Future, where he plays Michael J Fox’s nerdy father, George McFly. However, for the sequel, Glover objected to what he considered a low salary and expressed some issues with the script. Upset, the creators of the sequel recruited a new actor, Jeffrey Weissman, and went to great lengths to make the audience believe Glover was still portraying the part, including using prosthetics to make Weissman look more like him and even hanging the character upside down at one point in the movie.
Weissman claimed he heard the film’s director of photography refer to him on set as “Crispin, but without the problems,” while actress Lea Thompson, who played George’s wife, Lorraine, revealed that it was hard for her to work with a “stand-in” who was not Glover. Glover ended up suing the producers for using his likeness in the film, with the use of prosthetics, without his permission, and the matter was settled out of court.
Robert Englund in A Nightmare on Elm Street
The 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street was the first not to feature veteran horror star Robert Englund as the nightmare killer Freddy Krueger, replacing him with Oscar-nominee Jackie Earle Haley. Fans were understandably upset, as the film transitioned from Englund’s manic humor in the role to Haley’s chilling seriousness. In defense of Englund, he has always praised Haley to the utmost but admitted in 2012 that the film itself was not for him. “It was a little cold,” he said. “But Haley played Freddy in his own way.”
Edward Norton in The Avengers
It took three attempts for an actor to seem comfortable as The Incredible Hulk, when Mark Ruffalo took over the role of affable Dr. Bruce Banner for The Avengers in 2012. Eric Bana and Edward Norton had portrayed the role in separate films before him, but only Norton publicly condemned Marvel after he was not invited back.
After Marvel’s CEO Kevin Feige said they had left Norton in favor of an actor “who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit” of the franchise (gulp!), Norton responded in an interview with The Independent. He stated that his exit was purely due to money, not the rumors of on-set clashes during The Incredible Hulk of 2008. Norton said: “I thought it was a cheap and unnecessary lie that it was about anything other than money. They came to me eagerly to talk about that and then, at the end of the day, it was just a straight-up business decision… Marvel is going to have to deal with its own karma: they have bigger problems than me.”
