Re: 2001 20th Anniversary: A Summer Like No Other
Thegun wrote:
All of that cast sounds horrible to be honest. This is 2000-2004 You have Hopkins killing the credibility of Hannibal Lecter, RDJ trying to claw his way out of rock bottom (thank God he built his career back up small and led to the studio banking on him with Iron Man, we'd probably never heard of him again if he played Lex, but let's be honest Spacey was the top choice all the way back to 1998. Shia Labouf, this would have even been before Disturbia (this is like Holes Shia) and Hartnett would be coming off of really bad negativity from Pearl Harbor much like Affleck and his only hit was a sex comedy that opened to 12 million (And he still refused the role, which went to Matt Bomer.) That cast in that time period is a disaster, and McG coming off of Charlies Angels 2 and Ratner off of Red Dragon and the Hopkins connection. Bomer is actually the only casting for the role that seems like would have been a great pick. Ironically Amy Adams was in the running for Lois Lane back in 2002 even before Bosworth was cast.
Hopkins was still a big name that would have lent the project a ton of credibility. No clue what to make RDJ at the time but he would have been an epic villain. Shia would be a humorous Jimmy Olsen. McG would have been horrible, Ratner is the definition blah. Michael Bay could have at least made it a fun, epic popcorn movie.
You're really underselling the commercial aspect of Hartnett in the role, though. He was arguably the biggest teen heartthrob of the early 2000s. Affleck took the brunt of the negativity for Pearl Harbor as he had all the expectations going into while Hartnett was a nobody. Hartnett's critical appeal may have dipped a bit but his commercial career saw a massive bounce after that movie. Hartnett also rebounded immediately with Black Hawk Down, which he headlined over a ton of other name actors. DAVID FINCHER hand-picked Hartnett to lead The Black Dhalia (which Fincher eventually left) around this time. Hartnett had top-billing over a bunch of big name actors and actresses around this time- Ewan McGregor, Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johnson, Hillary Swank, Lucy Liu, Morgan Freeman, etc. There is a reason WB offered him so much money. He was massively famous at this time. He self sabotaged his career afterwards - kind of like Vin Diesel did for a time - but it doesn't take away from the fact that he was super famous for a period of time.
If this movie had come out any time between summer 2003 and winter 2004 for example, it would have been a massive opener. I doubt it would have a critical classic, but the commercial appeal for the time period is enormous.
_________________Ari Emmanuel wrote:
I'd rather marry lindsay Lohan than represent Mel Gibson.
