Joel Edgerton

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors
  1. Jeremy Renner, The Bourne Legacy, 2011.    Three was enough for Matt Damon. (Until 2015…!)  The studio did not agree and kept the franchise alive by rebooting Jason Bourne as Aaron Cross – “There Was Never Just One.” But who to play him from 20 hopefuls- Erryn Arkin, Adam Brody, Dominic  Cooper, Paul Dano, Luke Evans, Michael Fassbender, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Hartnett, Garrett Hedlund, Oscar Isaac (he was made an Outcome super-agent), Taylor Kitsch, Shia LaBeouf, Kellan Lutz, Logan Marshall-Green, Alex Pettyfer, Michael Pitt and Benjamin Walker. Plus Joel Edgerton and Tobey Maguire, who were Great Gatsbying down-under. Renner, Hollywood’s new white hope since The Hurt Locker, 2009, was suggested  for the Mission: Impossible.. if ever Tom Cruise retired.   
  2. Chris Hemsworth, Snow White and the Huntsman, 2011.   After Viggo Mortensen and Hugh Jackman demurred about the first of two revisionist Ms Whites that year, Edgerton nearly went hunting… until Thor’s $65m opening.
  3. Ryan Gosling, Gangster Squad, 2011.     Among five guys vying for Sergeant Jerry Wooters of the LAPD tackling the 40s/50s’ East Coast Mafia: Adam Brody, Luke Evans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
  4. Sullivan Stapleton, 300: Rise of an Empire, 2012. Apparently quite a few leading agents were trying to foreclose on the Athenian leader Themistocles for their A List clients.   But the producers wanted to make their own new star, as with Gerard Butler in the first 300, 2006. Edgerton was not keen. Another Aussie wasa – the unprepossessing Stapleton, from the dumb shoot ’em up, Strike Back, 2010-2018. (300 was much the same – with swords instead of guns).
  5. Matthew Goode, Stoker, 2012.    Prison Break TV star Wentworth Miller wrote the script – naming it for Dracula author Bram Stoker. Plus an added homage… Edgerton, Goode, Michael Fassebender, Colin Firth and James Franco were seen forthe most mysterious Uncle Charlie since Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt some 60 years earlier.
  6. James McAvoy, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: His& The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Hers, 2012.   Last minute change of Jessica Chastain’s husband in the twinset of movies relating the relationship of a New York couple from both his and her angles.
  7. Jason Clarke, Zero Dark Thirty, 2012.   Casting her first film since being the first woman to win a Best Director  Oscar (for The Hurt Locker on March 7, 2010), Kathleen Bigelow decided upon Edgerton for the Navy Seal team tracking and killing America’s Public Enemy #1, UBL – Osama bin Laden – in 2011. Schedules interfered and another Aussie took over. Joel was compensated with Patrick, the Squadron Team Leader.  The two guys stayed together for their next gig: The Great Gatbsy, 2012. 
  8. Ryan Gosling, Gangster Squad, 2012.    The City v Public Enemy #1, circa ’49. Apart from Sean Penn’s uproarious make-up as Mickey Cohen (befitting his worst rôle), Gosling won LAPD sergeant Jerry Wooters from Edgerton, Adam Brody, Luke Evans and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
  9. Bradley Cooper, Jane Got a Gun, 2013.    Natalie Portman’s fifth outing as a producer ran into all kinds of trouble. Michael Fassbender quit  (replaced by Joel Edgerton) after clashes with Scots director Lynne Ramsay. Then, she quit. Then, Jude Law quit Edgerton’s original role –  Lynne  being  the only reason why Law had  agreed to make the Sante Fe Western in the first place. Bridges was the (way) oldest of Law’s potential successors: almosy twice as old as Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire. (Ramsey’s exit allowed her to join Steven Spielberg’s 2013 Cannes festival jury).
  10. Chris Pratt,Guardians of the Galaxy, 2013.   The most Lucasian of the Marvel films… The bulked-up Parks and Recreation TV star won Marvel’s Peter Quill aka Star Lord chief of the alien superheroes from… 19 more usual prerequisites… Six TV finds (Cam Gigandet, Jack Huston, John Krasinski, James Marsden, Lee Pace, Aaron Paul), three science fiction favourites (Jensen Ackles, Garrett Hedlund, Michael Rosenbaum), a couple of triples (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Logan Marshall-Green), two hot Brits (Eddie Redmayne, Jim Sturgess), a brace of Aussies (Joel Edgerton, Sullivan Stapleton), two total outsiders (Glenn Howerton, Chris Lowell). And an ex-hottie on the comeback trail (Wes Bentley).

  11. Sullivan Stapleton, 300: The Rise of an Empire, 2013.  The legend insists Edgerton passed on the lead  when realising Zack Snyder was writer-producing his 300sequel but not directing. (He was off helming the Superman reboot: Man of Steel).  At first,  the action and title matched the Frank Miller graphic novel it was based onXerxes.   Rodrigo Santoro played him again but the emphasis switched to the Athenian leader, Themistocles – a big movie break for the Strike BackTV hunk.Stapleton realised “six pack abs” were a pre-requisite the epic and scoffed most of the planet’s yoghurt to get ’em!
  12. Henry Cavill,The Man From UNCLE,  2013.  Superman Cavill goes solo.  Napoleon Solo… After securing  the 60s’ TV series rights in 1993,  producer John Davis went through 20 years, 14 scripts,  four directors (letting slip Soderbergh and Tarantino!), plus 19 Napoleon Solos. From George Clooney in 2010 to Tom Cruise three years later. By way of the the eartly-21st century suspects: Edgerton, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Fassbender, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ryan Gosling, Jon Hamm, Joel Kinnaman, Ewan McGregor, Robert Pattinson, Chris Pine, Ryan Reynolds, Alexander Skarsgård (he switched to Tarzan), Channing Tatum. Even Russell Crowe, surely a better bet at 50 for old Waverly, the UNCLE boss.  
  13. Armie Hammer, The Man From UNCLE, 2014.   Losing Solo, Edgerton was next in the mix for his Russian agent partner, Illya Kuryakin. So was Henry Cavill –  due as Ilya opposite Tom Cruise, circa 2013, before Cruise quit to prep the fifth of his own ex-TV series franchise, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.  Cavill then moved into top spot.   Even after 20 years, poor Davis never got it right!
  14. Joel Kinnaman, Suicide Squad, 2015.    First, Tom Hardy, then  Edgerton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jon Bernthal, Jason Clarke and Karl Urban – lotsa comings and goings for Rick Flagg Jr in DC’s Dirty Dozen,a black ops force of supervillains, forced, blackmailed or offered  deals to work for the US government. Hardy preferred Venom; Urban almost became Aquaman’s first villain.

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  14