- Steven Strait, 10,000 BC, 2008. Son of actor parents, Chris didn’t didn’t start until after college, lost his first audition for Gilmore Girls. Two years later he was in ER as a drunk from a Valentine’s Day party. “There have been, like, three auditions in my life where I feel like I’m in a Saturday Night Live skit,” said actor Robert Pine’s actor son. “One was… 10,000 BC, where I was just, like, on my haunches pretending to be in a loincloth in Burbank” – as the young mammoth hunter D’Leh. His first feature was Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement with Anne Hathaway in 2003.
- Sam Worthington, Avatar, 2008. “My worst audition ever,” recalled Pine, when Fox wanted a star – Pine, Matt Damon or Jake Gyllenhaal – for hero Jake. As if director James Cameron wasn’t The Star! Poor Worthington was reduced to living in his car at the time… and Pine was called back from the next audition and won… the new Captain Kirk in the Star Trek reboot.
- Garrett Hedlund, TRON Legacy, 2009. Disney actually thought of hiring the new Captain Kirk as Jeff Bridges’ son, Sam. Casey Affeck, Ryan Gosling and Michael Stahl-David were als in the mix for the long-awaited (and, therefore, disappointing) sequel to the 1981 original. Disney rarely gave good science fiction. Until buying Lucasfilm.
- Ryan Reynolds, Green Lantern, 2010. Hey, c’mon fella, you’ve already got a franchise… While hunting possible Hal Jordans, the DC Comic hero with the super-powered ring, Warners and 007 director Martin Campbell voted against the new Star Trek’s new Kirk. And for Wolverine’s Deadpool – allowing Reynolds to achieve the rare double whammy of playing both Marvel Comics and DC Comics superheroes. His rivals had been Jack Black, Bradley Cooper, Nathan Fillion, Brian Austin Green, Emile Hirsch, Jared Leto, Eddie Murphy, Justin Timberlake, Sam Worthington. And two Brits: Henry Cavill, Michael Fassbender.
- Jeremy Renner, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, 2010. The new M:I agent William Brandt was designed, everyone said, to succeed Tom Cruise when he tired of being Ethan Hunt. Paramount checked out Renner, Christopher Egan, Tom Hardy, Anthony Mackie – and Pine, already in the Paramount family due to the Star Trek franchise. Renner was still around in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, 2014. But so was Cruise!
- Chris Pratt, 10 Years, 2010. Change of Chrisses for the IMDb pitch: High school reunion friends realise they still haven’t quite grown up…They included Channing Tatum, Justin Long, Max Minghella… but not Pine.
- Ryan Gosling, The Ides of March, 2010. When the exec producer had to quit (Leonardo DiCaprio, no less), Chris Pine was top substitute until Gosling proved available… for the sort of political Sammy Glick blackmailing presidential candidate George Clooney into a top job.
- Ryan Reynolds, Safe House, 2011. All the other new guys – Chris, Zac Efron, Jake Gyllenhaall, Garrett Hedlund, Taylor Kitsch, Shia LaBeouf, James McAvoy, Channing Tatum, Sam Worthington -also angled to be the freshman CIA babysitter having to rescue Denzel Washington from an attacked safe house in the Hollywood debut of Swedish director Daniel Espinosa8
- Matthew McConaughey, Mud, 2011. Pine met with Jeff Nichols but the Arkansas auteur’s first choice remained McConaughey – re-born as a fine actor from hereon. He was Nichols’ first choice ever since his work in Lone Star, 1995. Just as Matthew’s work here was the reason Christopher Nolan signed him for Interstellar, 2013. By 2014, Matthew was picking up the Best Actor Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club.. More huge problem for French TV cinema journos who could not pronounce his McName.
- Henry Cavill, The Man From UNCLE, 2013. James T Kirk, Jack Ryan and Napoleon Solo!! There was a limit to how many franchises one actor can star in… (Then again, this was nearly Tom Cruise’s third after Mission: Impossible and Jack Reacher). Also inthe mix for in the on-off-on-again update of the 1964-1968 espionage lite series were some 19 Solos. The usual lions: Christian Bale, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ewan McGregor. And the new tigers: Pine, Bradley Cooper, Michael Fassbender, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jon Hamm, Joel Kinnaman, Robert Pattinson, Ryan Reynolds, Alexander Skarsgård, Channing Tatum. Even Russell C rowe, surely a better bet at 50 for old Waverly, the UNCLE boss. Cavill had also auditioned for Solo’s partner, Ilya Kuraykin. Poor Davis never got it right!
- Charlie Hunnam, Triple Nine, 2013. In the mix (with Jeff Bridges) for the corrupt cops blackmailed into an “impossible” heist… which involved killing one of their own.
- Billy Magnussen, Into The Woods, 2013.
- Casey Affleck, Triple 9, n2015. Title is US PD code for: officer down. (n Ithe UK, it is fopr calling the police). Pine turned into LaBeouf, then Charlie Hunnam, and finally, Affleck, in this Kosher Nostraheist, stuffed with A-listers but listing in the wrong direction. Tighter, faster, it could have been something better than Rerservoir Puppies.
- Jeremy Renner, Wind River, 2016. In. Out. And back in ahain… Renner was director Taylor Sheridan’s initial choice for – except he was making Arrival. Sheridan call up Pine and he was into Wonder Women. Then, Renner’s schedule opened a window of opportunity…
- Ben Affleck, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2015.
- Ezra Miller, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2015.
- Colin Farrelll, Dumbo, 2017. If elephants could fly… Well, they do at Disney. Three times, the 1941 toon, the 1985-1986 toon series and now the live-action version. Casey Affleck, Bill Header, Chris Pine, Will Smith passed the code-named Big Ears (wow, wonder what that’s about!) to an exceedingly interested Farrell. Because he was a Tim Burton fan, loved working with (the circus) horses and longed to make ““something as sweet and fantastical and otherworldly, while being grounded in some recognisable world.” Story-wise, this was more Free Willy revisited.
- Ezra Miller, The Flash, 2019. After their Gotham triumph, the Batman boys, Jon Peters and Peter Guber, planned the first Flash movie as long ago as 1991. Much later, Ryan Reynolds was up for what would have been the first of his three superheroes (counting Captain Excellent in Paperman). Next? Chris Pine in 2016. They never happened. But 28 years later, were in the mix. Plus the Lost star Matthew Fox… back in ’91 the choice was another Fox – Michael J Fox Furthermore, the actual writer-creator (with artist Harry Lampart) of the three scarlet speedsters was yet another Fox – Gardner Fox, 1911-1986. (What? Oh no, the fourth Flash, Barry’s grandson, Bart, didn’t arrive until 2006). Released in 2023.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 18