Actors they had to keep around

[Z]

Scott Caan is in the first Oceans film as one of the eleven. Retrospectively he doesn't fit at all with the other American actors in the eleven but you can kind of see how at the time people may have viewed him as still having something like potential. Skip along to the third one and he's just woefully out of place when he does appear and you get the impression he knows it too, he's at a point of insignificance that it isn't even worth giving him the time to write him out.
There's presumably tons of cases like this? Some emerging actor gets a prominent role in a big series only for the rest of their career to go nowhere.



Not to limit this to desperate cases, on the other end of the scale you have the Winston Bogarde style "this might be my last big payday, so I'mma bleed them dry" heroes
Chris Tucker managed to get something along the lines of $20 million dollars for Rush Hour 3 (as part of a two-film contract, iirc) purely because without him it's just another declining revenue Jackie Chan film. He went a few years out of acting entirely until they caved.
Martin Lawrence held out for Bad Boys 2 top billing and equal pay, then he held out 15 years for Will Smith's star to drop enough that they could justify paying him something close to equal again. Whether the film'll ever happen is another thing but if/when it does, it's gonna be Lawrence that'll be laughing all the way to the bank.
Think there's a reasonable case to say for Harrison Ford; he must be making a fucking killing between Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Blade Runner, three franchises that he was so tightly associated with that they've little choice but to hire him for, at the very least, some passing-the-torch style cameos.

[gatchamandave]

What, Scott Caan is in Hawaii 5-0 these days isn't he?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Orlando Bloom in the Hobbit films springs to mind. His star had long since faded, so he must have been as happy as a pooey pig when he got the call. I wonder what it was like, revisiting the highpoint of his career - and possibly his youth - but not nearly as good.

[Shit Good Nose]

Orlando Bloom in the Hobbit films springs to mind. His star had long since faded, so he must have been as happy as a pooey pig when he got the call. I wonder what it was like, revisiting the highpoint of his career - and possibly his youth - but not nearly as good.

Was he even actually in the Hobbit films?  He looked almost entirely CGI.

...mind you, everything did in those...

[BlodwynPig]

Wrath of Weinstein (re: bloom) or was there another reason his star waned (i.e. he was a shit actor?)

[Shit Good Nose]

To be fair, I don't think his star has waned, he's just spent most of the last 5 or 6 years predominantly doing just three films (Hobbitses and Pirateses).

[BlodwynPig]

To be fair, I don't think his star has waned, he's just spent most of the last 5 or 6 years predominantly doing just three films (Hobbitses and Pirateses).

I just checked his filmography and was stunned that Rings was his second film (previously had a role as "rent boy"). I thought he was known before then.

[Shit Good Nose]

If memory serves, in the commentary for Fellowship, Peter Jackson said that when he saw Bloom's audition for Faramir he immediately thought him perfect for Legolas and cast him for that on the spot.

He was in Black Hawk Down the same year (again, if memory serves, in the commentary for that Ridley Scott says that Bloom was recommended to him by someone on the Fellowship production).

[BlodwynPig]

He auditioned for Mino4 but sadly didn't make the cut as Jen hated his guts due to a longstanding grudge

[Shit Good Nose]

Shame, cos there'd have been absolutely no on-screen chemistry between those two.

[gatchamandave]

He auditioned for Mino4 but sadly didn't make the cut as Jen hated his guts due to a longstanding grudge

Mino 4 ? Jen ?

[Twed]

Surely they actively choose to feature Orlando Bloom in The Hobbit. His character wasn't in the actual story at all.

It was a bad decision to have him leaping around like Prince of Persia, but The Hobbit was just three movies of George Lucas-scale bad decisions.

[mothman]

I recall on another forum as we were following the casting announcements for LotR, the news that a major character like Legolas was going to be played by some unknown who'd been a rent boy in Stephen Fry's Wilde film was almost as bad as Stuart Townsend as Aragorn (thank fuck THAT got changed, at least). He WAS good as Legolas; but unless he majorly rethinks his career (and probably not the way Daniel Radcliffe has!) I'd say his time is over.

This doesn't help. NSFW!

[Z]

Legolas was featured in some of the other stories they used to pad out the trilogy, wasn't he?

I'd also say the studio could kinda see how the films were starting to stink the place up and put in a demand to feature more LOTR people where possible
He also has had a steady Pirates of the Carribbean work, would not be surprised if they killed him off (in an attempt to give one film purpose) and brought him back (in an attempt to give the next film familiarity) in that series though.

I recall on another forum as we were following the casting announcements for LotR, the news that a major character like Legolas was going to be played by some unknown who'd been a rent boy in Stephen Fry's Wilde film was almost as bad as Stuart Townsend as Aragorn (thank fuck THAT got changed, at least).

Who exactly did they want as Legolas? It's a role that suits an unknown, between the elf makeup and all the leaping and shit, there's a pretty high risk of a more recognised name just looking goofy playing elf man. I'd say there's a fair argument all the elf men should've been unknowns, Weaving looks ridiculous in that film.

[mothman]

I don't recall there being any alternatives suggested. It's more that things like this added to certain alarm bells that were ringing at the time regarding the cast - the Townsend thing; Liv Tyler being almost the highest-profile name that was announced for a long time (she was almost the first?) and playing an utterly minor character at that; two of the hobbits being played by Americans; NOT getting Christopher Lee, Sean Connery or Patrick Stewart to play Gandalf. As you can see - and I'll admit quite freely - we were hopelessly myopic in some of our judgements (Salah from the Indy films as Gimli? No, can't see that one at all).

[kidsick5000]

What, Scott Caan is in Hawaii 5-0 these days isn't he?

In my head, he got that gig between Ocean's 12 and 13. Turns out he got it 3 years after 13.
But fair play to him. I'm amazed that show has lasted so long. Big show, gets to spend a sizable chunk of time in Hawaii... I don't think he's too fussed about looking awkward in some knockabout crime capers :)

[mothman]

There are so many TV shows, you can't be expected to keep track. The Hawaii Five-O remake looked doomed to failure, so I never gave it another thought. Turned out it's going strong. Or, to give another example, I recently remembered a show being promoted which featured a nude woman being found covered in tattoos. Couldn't remember the name (in fact I've now forgotten it again) but I Googled and found it's now three seasons in. Who knew?

Historical example: spy comedy Scarecrow & Mrs. King. I remember this being on TV in the UK in the early/mid-eighties. Totally forgot about it until Bruce Boxleitner joined Babylon 5. Then when I eventually wondered how long S&MK had lasted and looked it up, it transpired it'd been on until about 1987 I think. Yet I can only remember it being on UK TV in about 1984. Then it dropped from view.