- Michael Clarke Duncan, Planet of the Apes, 2000. Tim Burton’s offer to Spielberg’s find for Amistad and Gladiator, clashed with the schedule of the (sixth) Four Feathers, 2002, from Shekhar Kapur.“It is what it is,” said the disappointed star, Mark Wahlberg. “They didn’t have the script right. Fox had a release date before Tim Burton had shot a foot of film. They were pushing him and pushing him in the wrong direction. You have to let Tim do his thing.”
Laurence Fishburne, Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 2006. Timothy Olyphant and Gary Sinise also auditioned as the voice of Silver Surfer – won by Fishburne after deciding against voicing Galactus who, finally, was not humanised. - Bob Sapp, Conan The Barbarian, 2010. Tested for Ukafa who isKhalar Singh’s second in command.But you knew that, right?
- David Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy, 2013. The most Lucasian of the Marvel films… He knew he’d lost Drax when he saw how ripped Bautista was. He happily joined the villains as Korath (it saved five hours of make-up per day) to please his son who just loved superheroes. “One day he looks at me and says : Dad, I want to be light-skinned so I could be Spider-Man. That was sort of a shock… so I could hopefully provide that diversity in the role of the superhero.”
- Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther, 2017. Spider-Man turned up in the third Cap Am movie as a teaser for his welcome-back-home-to-Marvel reboot. Idem for T’Challa/Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War, 2015, before this ground-breaking solo flight. The finalists included four Brits: Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Algrim/Kurse in Thor: The Dark World), John Boyega (Finn in the 21st Century Star Wars), Noel Clarke (from Star Trek Into Darkness), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Mordo in Doctor Strange)… Benin’s Djimon Hounsou (Korath in Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Marvel)… four Americans: Boseman (best known for his James Brown in Get On Up, 2013), Chad L Coleman (from The Wire and Arrow), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/Falcon in films and TV) and Wesley Snipes, from way back in 1990, when the title was muddled with the 60s’ black activists. In fact, the comic came out two months before the group in 1965. Finally, Snipes was too old and supported Boseman’s take “1,000%.”Grossing $1bn, the actual Black Panther film was #1 in the US for five weeks, until dethroned by Pacific Rim: Uprising starring… Boyega!
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 5