Recast Movies That Didn't Need It...

Cafe Society
1
  • and try to make the best of things. So pick a good movie with a solid cast, and pretend you’re the casting director who has just lost a big chunk of your main cast. The only rule is that your replacement actors need to be alive and somewhat age-appropriate during the filming.

If your choice of movie is good enough, odds are your cast can’t make it better, but points* are awarded for making the best of a bad situation.

*there are no points

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Fun concept. I was hoping to see replies (because apparently I’m incapable of checking the reply count before I open a thread). So, when I didn’t, I started working on recasting Pulp Fiction and, man… Now I know why you don’t have any replies. This is hard.

I’ll pop back in if I come up with anything that isn’t too embarrassing to post. Maybe I set the bar too high with that particular film.

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Wait, so do we have to use actors that were of age at the time a film was made - or as if we were making the film now w/ the current crop of talent?

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Good question, Ninj. Because I was just about to recast Michelle Trachtenberg in Mathilda May’s part in Lifeforce.

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Ok, for now I’m going off of the OP’s statement that we’re the casting director and have lost a big chunk of the cast… and that the actors must be alive/age appropriate during filming.

So let’s get into the Way Back Machine and travel back to 1992 to recast one of my favorite movies of all time, with one of the best ensemble casts of all time: Glengarry Glen Ross. I’ll just post the original actor w/ who I would replace them with. I’m not going to look up the character names…

Al Pacino - Christopher Walken
Jack Lemmon - Jack Warden
Alan Arkin - Harvey Keitel
Alec Baldwin - Richard Gere
Ed Harris - Bill Paxton
Kevin Spacey - James Woods
Jonathan Pryce - Bob Hoskins

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The Usual Suspects - Gabriel Byrne was always so frustratingly miscast as Dean Keaton IMO (A dirty NY cop with a Irish brogue, really?). If I had my druthers I’d replace him with Chazz Palminteri (obviously!) and as Agent Cujan cast Christopher Walken (who was reportedly offered the role) instead…

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Wah-waaaaaah. You killed the movie.

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I know. Ed Harris’ role was pretty low key though and I couldn’t think of anyone else to plug in there.

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Okay, here goes nothing. Using the “if it was filmed today” angle:

Pulp Fiction

Vincent- Colin Farrel*
Jules- Jamie Foxx*
Butch- Gerard Butler
Mia- Marion Cotillard
Marcellus- Djimon Hounsou
Lance- James Franco
The Wolf- Dennis Farina
Jimmy- Peter Skarsgard
Ringo- Dominic Monagan
Yolanda- Amy Acker

*Yes, I know I’m not casting “Miami Vice 2.” I’m serious.