1. – Robert Redford, All The President’s Men, 1976. Redford was planning to relate the Watergate saga that ruined President Richard Nixon in a little film. With the 1973 Bang The Drum Slowly duo, Moriarty and Robert De Niro as “Woodstein”: Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. And, in fact, hearing Redford talking about this casting story is what bred my fetish…
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* Producer Robert Redford wanted a modest movie about the Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story. Before they helped topple President Richard Nixon, a small ($2m) budget and unknown actors were planned. He chose the 1973 Bang The Drum Slowly: Robert De Niro to be Carl Bernstein and Michael Moriarty as Bob Woodward. Increased costs called for safeguards called Dustin Hoffman and Redford. [Montage by Reg Oliver, 1976]
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2. – Harvey Keitel, The Duellists, 1977. Two Michaels – Moriarty and York – were picked and just as rapidly dropped by new UK director Ridlery Scott.r
3. – Scott Wilson, The Ninth Configuration, 1980. What novelist and now auteur William Peter Blatty declared to be the true sequel to The Exorcist, to 1973. Well, Wilson’s Captain Cutshaw is the same astronaut who Regan warns – “You’re gonna die up there” – in the first film. .
4. – Jack Nicholson, The Shining, 1980.
Judging them solely on Taxi Driver and Mork & Mindy, Stanley Kubrick said Robert De Niro was not psychotic enough while Robin Williams was too much so! Although Kubrick’s only choice was Nicholson, Warner Bros also suggested Harrison Ford, Christopher Reeve. and Martin Sheen. Or even the funny Chevy Chase and Leslie Nielsen (what were they smoking?) Author King said “normal looking” Moriarty or Jon Voight going mad would work better than Jack. Didn’t matter who was Jack Torrance as Kubrick, usually so blissfully right about everything, had clearly lost it. He insisted on up to 70 takes for some scenes (three days and 60 doors for “Here’s Johnny!”) reducing Shelley Duvall and grown men, like Scatman Crothers at 69, to tears. “Just what is it that you want, Mr Kubrick?” He didn’t know. He was, quite suddenly, a director without direction. Result: a major disappointment. Not only for Stephen King but the rest of us. Harry Dean Stanton escaped being Lloyd, the bartender. By making a real horror film. Alien.
5. – Bruce Boxleitner,m Babylon 5, TV, 1994-98. He was asked to be Captain John Sheridan, the 2258 space station commander… but he wanted to return to movies, not series. After some 88 cases of Law & Order, 1990-1994.
6. – David Ogden Stiers, The Dead Zone, TV, 2002-07. He was cast as the evangelist, the Reverend Eugene “Gene” Purdy. And then he wasn’t.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 6