James Marsden

  1. Jeremy London, Party of Five, TV, 1995-2000.    Marsden was Griffin Holbrook  once in the opening season –  but  London thereafter.

  2. Casper Van Dien, Starship Troopers, 1996.  Josh Brolin auditioned, James Marsden and Mark Wahlberg simply passed on being Johnny Rico – whether the great Paul Verhoeven (succeeding James Cameron) was directing or not! Marsden and Wahlberg joined forces for 2 Guns in 2012.

  3. Ben Affleck, Pearl Harbor, 2001.  Lost the lead.
  4. Casey Affleck, Soul Survivors, 2001.         Gave the lead away. Ran off to be  Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, in theX-Menf ranchise.The breakthrough year of Ben’s brother, Casey, was delayed until 2007.
  5. Jason Raize, Brother Bear, 2003.  Marsden was in the frame to voice Denahi. But  Raize was already a Disney favourite, having played Simba in Broadway’s The Lion King. Alas, this was his second and ffinal fil;m,. released  three months after his  2004 suicide in Australia.
  6. Karl Urban, Star Trek, 2008.Among the early notions of the Trekkie-rebooter-in-chief, JJ Abrams, for Dr Leonard McCoy – aka Bones.
  7. Sean Hayes, The Three Stooges, 2011.       The Farrelly brothers looked over Marsden, veteran comic-writer Matt Besser (90 screen roles since 1996), Woody Harrelson and even Justin Timberlake for Larry Fine in what was an obvious flop from the get-go. Bobby and Peter adored them (hence their own un-subtle comedies) but there were not many other fans left of the Stooges – and their literal slap-happy boinks, pokes, slaps, nyuk-nyuks and nyaaahhhs. Mel Brooks had backed off from such a project in 1974 for exactly that reason. “It’s so hard to sustain a plot that could withstand their antics for that long.”
  8. Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy, 2013.       The most Lucasian of the Marvel films… All the usual prerequisites were the (crowded)  battle of new Hollywood guys for Peter Quill/Star Lord…  Seven TV finds (Marsden, Pratt, Cam Gigandet, Jack Huston, John Krasinski, 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), two Aussies (Joel Edgerton, Sullivan Stapleton), two Total Outsiders (Chris Lowell and Glenn Howerton). And an ex-hottie on the comeback trail (Wes Bentley).  Pratt ws a surprising Disney choice given that in  his previous far-from-family-film, Movie 43  (“the Citizen Kane of  awful” – Chicago Sun-Times), the tragically-named Pratt defecated on his (real) wife, Anna Faris, during sex.
  9. Patrick Wilson, In the Tall Grass, 2018.  Detroit director Vincenzo Natali called up Wilson to substitute Marsden when he jumped ship  to join, of all things, Sonic the Hedgehog.  (And he agreed to continue playing Tom for “as many as they want to make.”).   So he missed the 266th of King’s staggering 313 screen credits – and the first to be shared with his successful novelist  son, Joe King.  Marsdsen joined the fuller, nine-chapter version of King’s epic,  The Stand, in 2019.

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  9