You’re right. Corporal.
Good lord, that would have been a catastrophe. Whoever caused them to cast Cranston instead is like the TV production equivalent of that Soviet military officer who averted a nuclear war.
The theme song to Hogan’s Heroes has lyrics. They are very bad.
I quite like them, especially the part that goes
Never flinch, boys, never be afraid.
Heroes are not born, boys, heroes all are made.
Ask not why, boys, never say die, boys.
Answer the call, remember we’ll all be
heroes forevermore.
Oh, right: Hopkins. Got my -ins mixed up. 
And would it have made any difference to the film if they’d selected him? I can well imagine Selleck playing Jones almost exactly the same way that Ford did.
Eric Stoltz is however still in the movie: Eric Stoltz is Actually Still In Back To The Future!
I wish that had happened in an alternate universe, just so I could satisfy my morbid curiosity. Ironically, I came to Breaking Bad years late because I thought the premise of the show and the casting of the Malcolm in the Middle dad sounded dumb as hell.
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad move.
That’s not how Vince Gilligan tells it. He had worked with Bryan Cranston on an episode of The X-Files that he wrote
A guest role on ‘The X-Files’ helped Bryan Cranston get his Emmy-winning role on ‘Breaking Bad’
Robert Redford was the first choice to play Benjamin Braddox in the Graduate. He truned it fown, and Dustin Hoffman got his breakout role.
After being cast as Garp, Robin Williams suggested his good friend Christopher Reeve for the role of transsexual Roberta Muldoon. He turned it down, and John Lithgow got his breakout role.
Rue McClanahan, who had played the airhead Vivian on Maude, was asked to audition for the airhead Rose on The Golden Girls. While waiting, she read the script and thought “I’d be perfect for Blanche.” In the meantime, Betty White, who had played the man hungry Sue Ann on Mary Tyler Moore, was supposedly auditioning for the role of man hungry Blanche.
The producer came out and said"I’m sorry, but Betty White auditioned for and has been cast as Rose." So Rue asked to audition for Blanche.
The producer told her she was perfect, but Bea Arthur had turned down the role of Dorothy. Rue called Bea and asked why.“Because I don’t want to do Maude meets Sue Ann and Vivian” was her response. When Rue explained the changed roles, there was a long pause, and Bea said “That would be interesting.”
And the rest is TV history.
Further nitpicking, Bolger was hired to play the tin man. Since seeing someone play the scarecrow on stage inspired him to become a performer, he begged Ebsen, who had been cast as the scarecrow, to switch roles. Of the main characters in the movie, only Bert Lahr and Billie Burke were played by the character originally considered for the role:
Dorothy: Shirley Temple –> Judy Garland
Scarecrow: Buddy Ebsen –> Ray Bolger
Tin Man: Ray Bolger –> Buddy Ebsen –> Jack Haley
Lion: Bert Lahr
Wizard: W. C. Fields –> Frank Morgan
Wicked Witch: Gale Sondergaard –> Margaret Hamilton
Glinda: Billie Burke
Mark Lindsay was cast as John Lennon in the TV movie John Y Yoko A Love Story. When it was found out that his full name was Mark Lindsey Chapman, the role was recast with Mark McGann.
In case you don’t know it, Lennon’s killer was Mark David Chapman. As Yoko supposed put it: Would you want Lee Lindsey (Oswald) to portray John F. Kennedy.
I have seen a couple slightly different versions from Carl Reiner on casting for Laura Petrie on “Dick van Dyke”. On you tube he tells some talk show host that producer Sheldon Leonard told him he would know it when he found her. After about 25 interviews, Mary Tyler Moore came in, did some well that Reiner put his hand on top of her head like she was a prize in a vending machine and took her to Leonard saying “I found her!”
In another on the bluray for the show, Reiner talks about interviewing a number and flying from New York to California a somewhat well known actress (Eileen Brennan, I think) who read well but just didn’t have the chemistry with DvD he wanted. Although he cost for the plane was $500, it was a fairly expensive item when they were budgeted for $40,000. So Leonard reported that to Danny Thomas (whose company produced it). Thomas took it well and remarked a couple years earlier when Sherry Jackson left “Make Room for Daddy”, he tested one woman who did well but Thomas rejected because her nose was a lot different from his. He couldn’t remember who, just that she used three names. Sheldon Leonard was there and said “I know who you mean. The secretary from Richard Diamond with the great gams: Mary Tyler Moore”
“Get Smart” was made as a vehicle fotr ABC starring Tom Poston. They turned it down and NBC picked it up. Since they already had Don Adams under contract from the “Bill Dana Show”, they made him the lead.Don’t know if anyone else ranked high but when Loretta Lynn had a movie made out of her autobiography “Coal Miner’s Daughter” she chosed Sissy Spacek by looking at photos. Spacek was unsure, she had an offer for a Nicholas Roeg project so she demanded she be allowed to do her own singing. Lynn agreed so still torn Spacek’s mother-in-law suggested she pray for a sign. In a car listening to a station that switch from classical to country at night, she heard “Coal Miner’s Daughter”.
Lynn said in a Merv Griffin interview in 1978 that Harrison Ford would be in the movie. I assume it was for the Tommy Lee Jones got as Mooney: Lynn’s drinking, philandering, occasional wife beating husband who did buy her a guitar and push her into performing music live and schooming with disc jockeys to play her record and find out what horny really means.
Drag racer Shirley Muldowney wanted Jamie Lee Curtis to play her in “Heart Like a Wheel” but Bonnie Bedelia got the role. Susan Lucci also tested.Yeah, I didn’t just make it up.
Gilligan didn’t have as much clout back then. If AMC had wanted Cusack or Broderick and they had accepted, that’s the way it would have gone.
That $500 would be around $4000 today.
In 1962 writer William Link wrote a script called “Enough Rope” about a police detective named Lt Columbo that got on the “Chevy Mystery Theater with character Bert Freed. Two years later it was a play with Thomas Mitchell, winner of the Oscar for supporting actor as the drunken doctor in “Stagecoach”. In 1968 Link and co writer Richard Levinson turned it into television movie called “Prescription Murder”. They wanted Lee J Cobb but he was busy on “Coogan’s Bluff”. So who did they turn to to play the sloppy, annoying cigar smoking detective?
Bing Crosby. Who turned them down because he loved playing golf. So Peter Falk got the job because he reminded everyone of Der Bingle (kidding).
Not the first break Peter Falk got. In 1960 Robert Evans was asked to play gangster Abe “Kid Twist” Reles in the film “Murder Inc”. But since it wasn’t the lead role (basically Stuart Whitman and Mai Britt were) Evans turned them down. So they hire an obscure off broadway actor, Peter Falk, and his Oscar nomination set him on the road to fame.
Sarah Michelle Gellar originally auditioned for the role of Cordelia.
I think Selleck would have better in some ways. Ford did a great job, but his sourpuss demeanor somehow finds its way into every role he plays. Selleck, I think, would have made Indiana Jones more upbeat and enthusiastic.
Desi Arnaz originally wanted Van Johnson to play Eliot Ness in “The Untouchables”. Johnson wanted twice what Arnaz would pay. After that Fred MacMurray and Jack Lord were approached before they got Robert Stack. They found him at a Hollywood eatery at 2AM on a Sunday, fitted him for clothes that afternoon and Monday filming started.