- Hugh Jackman, X-Men quartet, 1999-2013. “Hey, bub, I’m not finished with you yet…” Jackie Earle Haley, Gary Sinise and Kiefer Sutherland were in the 1989 Logan/Wolverine frame. In the early 90s. James Cameron chose, of all people, chubby Bob Hoskins. The fans voted for Jack Nicholson… well, he’d been a decent Wolf in 1994. Fox could not think beyond Keanu Reeves. Crowe felt Logan was too similar to his 1999 Gladiator… and just a toon, anyway. Took him a dozen years to understand comics and succeed Marlon Brando, no less, as Superman’s father, Jor-El, in Man of Steel. Director Bryan Singer searched on through… Eckhart, singer-songwriter Glenn Danzig, Mel Gibson, Viggo Mortensen, (a great idea but not finished with Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings), Edward Norton (also considered for Scott Summers/Cyclops) and – oh no! – Jean-Claude Van Damme. Finally, Singer chose Dougray Scott – but he was stuck on Mission: Impossible II in Australia which is where Jackman came from (on Crowe’s reccommendation) to save the day. And the franchise. At last count Jackman has been Wolverine in ten movies (Deadpool 2included) across 19 years.
- Guy Pearce, Memento, 1999. After Alec Baldwin foolishly passed on the hero with massive short-term memory loss, director Christopher Nolan (adapting his brother Jonathan’s short story) looked at Eckhart, Thomas Jane, Brad Pitt, Charlie Sheen. None could have matched the moving work of Pearce, who also had the advantage of being less known and, therefore, more credible as Leonard… talking fast to stop forgetting what he’s talking about!
- James Caviezel, AngelEyes, 2001. Eckhart quit and Caviezel (busily learning fencing for The Count of Monte Cristo) only accepted when his Frequency co-star, Dennis Quaid, called to say how director Luis Mandoki always got the best out ofpeople – like Mrs Quaid, Meg Ryan, in When A Man Loves A Woman, 1994. Jim turned up… with his fencing master!
- Adrien Brody, The Village, 2003. When Ashton Kutcher quit being Noah due to an overcrowded diary, auteur M Night Shymalan started a revised wish-list: Brody, Christensen, Aaron Eckhart, Thomas Jane. Brody had something the others didn’t. An Oscar. (Plus a tendency to over-act).
- Thomas Haden Church, Sideways, 2004. Auteur Alexander Payne was, as they say, spoilt for choice: Clooney, Aaron Eckhart, Brad Pitt. Until he realised they were too famous to play a TV soap actor.
- Dermot Mulroney, The Family Stone, 2005. Eckhart was the first Everett Stone until schedule clashes changed the screwball comedy sons of Diane Keaton. From Eckhart’s successor, Billy Crudup, and Johnny Knoxville to Mulroney and Luke Wilson.
- David Morrissey, Basic Instinct 2, 2005. “I let myself down,” said Morrissey. “When it came out… I didn’t want to leave the house.It was a very bruising experience.” Among some 14 others running to Sharon Stone – or from her and the idea of playing her London shrink – Javier Bardem, Benjamin Bratt, Pierce Brosnan, Gabriel Byrne, Bernicio Del Torro, Robert Downey Jr, Rupert Everett (!) ,Bruce Greenwood, Jude Law, Ewan McGrgeor, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Perez, Kurt Russell. An obvious flop before one scene was shot in anger… As in: What can she do for an encore?
- Richard Coyle, A Good Year, 2005. Change of Amis in Ridley Scott’s version of Peter Mayle’s Provence novel, or rather Scott’s version (his sole comedy) of the idea he gave Mayle for his novel – and not as Mayle finally wrote it.
- Josh Brolin, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, 2009. Eckhart is good with baddies but director Oliver Stone decided upon his W from his 2008 study of George W Bush. The sub-title stems from a Michael Douglas-as-Gordon-Gekko line in the first, 1987 film.
- Tony Goldwyn, Divergent, 2013. Hunger Games by any other name… And, indeed, Andrew Prior by another name once Eckhart quit and Goldwyn took over.
-
Morgan Freeman, Angel Has Fallen, 2018. For a guy who confessed he only made the first of the franchise – and the next two! – for the money, Freeman rose from the Speaker of the House Allan Trumbull in Olympus Has Fallen, 2012, to Veep in London Has Fallen, 2014, and now the new POTUS after Eckhart’s two-film reign. Freeman had also been POTUS Tom Beck in Deep Impact, 1997, a dozen years before Barrack Obama was elected as the first black US President. As The Man in 1971, James Earl Jones was Hollywood’s first black POTUS in the White House – a role intended, of course, for Sidney Poitier. Lou Gosset Jr is the only black actor to have occupied the Oval Office twice – in Left Behind: World at War and Solar Attack, 2005
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 11