If you've been wondering why Damien Chazelle didn’t cast Whiplash star Miles Teller in his TIFF’s People’s Choice Award winner La La Land, it looks like we have our answer: Teller wanted more money. Editorializing on a celebrity’s character is a tricky line to tow so let's just say this is not surprising. Of much more interest is the alternate casting of a different Emma as the female lead, Emma of the Watson variety.
We'll never be able to speak to what Watson and Teller would have done with the roles that are winning Oscar buzz for Ryan Gosling and (frontrunner?) Emma Stone but it does get the mind racing about favorite almost-casts or last minute drop-outs in movie history. There’s your classic Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones or Winona Ryder as Mary Corleone, or more contemporarily you’ve got Will Smith as Django or, uh, Will Smith as Neo. (Follow up question: what made Deadshot so appealing to him that he made it all the way to production?) Alternate cinematic villains give you a dreamy rogue’s gallery of woulda-coulda-shouldas, including The Bening as Catwoman or O.J. Simpson as The Terminator. Above all else, I’d kill to see Warren Beatty play Quentin Tarantino’s Bill. What are some of your favorite alternate casting choices in Hollywood history?