Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

Imagine a black Spider-Man brought to the silver screen in the reboot of the franchise. Or a red-headed Marty McFly instead of hip young Michael J. Fox. Or how about the Mustache Menace Tom Selleck dodging a rolling boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark?

These are just a few of the no-doubt hundreds of “almost-but-never-were” casting choices in movies past.

Casting can make or break a film’s believability, it’s entertainment factor, and its’ awards chances. Imagine the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air cracking jokes as Neo in The Matrix — or even defending the U.S. as Captain America. Or one of the raunchiest comedians of the 80s, Eddie Murphy, aboard the Starship Enterprise.

Or Abed as Shaft:

He IS the man.

You’re likely these days to read more about actors cast against-type than replacing someone they admire. Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx were originally cast in each others’ eventual roles in Law Abiding Citizen — a viewer might say this hurt the movie as a whole, that Foxx can’t play straight, and Butler is not psychotic enough (then this person would watch 300 and say.…“oh”). Sissy Spacek and Carrie Fisher swapped roles in completely different movies (Carrie and Star Wars, respectively) after Fisher refused to go nude for Brian De Palma’s horror flick.

I could go on and on about how The Godfather was almost played by crooning Frank Sinatra instead of the pitch-perfect Marlon Brando, but you would get lost in a sea of useless trivia. Instead, I wanted to pose a question to the filmmakers and enthusiasts out there, and perhaps spark a discussion: Why don’t you take more chances on casting?

After all, Darren Aronofsky lifted Mickey Rourke out from under a rock to put him at the center of The Wrestler, and when no one wanted to utter her name, Lindsay Lohan was plunked into the middle of Robert Altman’s final feature film A Prairie Home Companion — and played her part very well indeed.

When casting rumors swirled around the roles of The Joker and Two-Face in The Dark Knight, everyone went nuts. You all remember them: Sean Penn, Michael Keaton(?), Crispin Glover [JOKER], Ryan Phillippe, Liev Shreiber, Josh Lucas [TWO-FACE]. Even when Heath Ledger was officially announced, some chose not to believe while others stood firm that Crispin Glover would’ve been the last person to play the role.

And then the movie came out, and you know the rest.

Recently, there was a swirl of guesses, some known, others unknown, over who would play Spider-Man in the unnecessary yet inevitable reboot of that franchise. Andrew Garfield won the part, stifling all the noise, but in an interesting twist on the rumor mill, two actors tried to throw themselves into the role.

The first, Josh Hutcherson, went with the old audition tape technique:

As you can see, the dude hired some stunt guys and tried really hard to show he can fight. The problem with an audition tape such as this is: it doesn’t show that you can act. Barely says two words, and the clunkers he hired to act around him only serve to distract the watcher from whatever point Hutcherson was trying to make. Not only that, but he’s not an inspired choice, he’s too similar to the previous web-head Tobey Maguire to make much of an impression.

The other fierce fighter for the role of Peter Parker was the hilarious Donald Glover, of “Community” fame. Glover has charm, wit, a great physique, and appears to maintain a steady hold on his character work. He issued a stream of tweets in a campaign to get himself hired for the role, but it never really got as far as Betty White’s Facebook campaign to host SNL. The other factor that probably played against Glover, on multiple levels: He’s Black.

Unfortunately, studios fail to see the draw of having a black man step into the shoes of a traditionally white role. Black men have starred in comic book adaptations before –Blade being the most popular among them — but we’ve never scene a black star take on the role of a comic book hero that is usually seen as white. Would this work? I think it would, and that it’s past due for it to happen.

Recently, Will Smith’s son Jaden starred in the remake of The Karate Kid, updating the story for a new generation and casting the character in a new light (I don’t know if that’s a pun of some kind, but if it is, it’s totally unintended). The result was a successful film both at the box office and in its’ storyline.Why not take another already established character, from the comic book world, and recast with a black lead? Spider-Man would’ve been the top choice.

Would a black Superman or Batman do anything for you? There were rumors of Eddie Murphy playing the Riddler in the next Batman film (totally false, by the way). If that were true in any sense, would it change the way you look at Batman, or would it open the door to a different angle on a classic tale?

Would it change anything at all…?

Thoughts below. Type them. Brief me…

Dismissed!

Sgt. Angle

Sgt. Angle reporting for duty!

The news, as recently reported in The Hollywood Reporter, is that “Fight Club” director David Fincher and dark childhood memory thriller writer Andrew Kevin Walker (both of Se7en and Fight Club fame) will be joining forces yet again, this time for a remake/new adaptation of The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Story centers on a dude who starts to have visions of one of his past lives, and the dark places these visions lead him. The concept and powerhouse duo got me thinking of some other great film collaborations. I’ve compiled a list below, in no particular order.

1. Steven Spielberg and John Williams (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List). Spielberg’s always hitting audiences with the semi-fantastical yet always grounded in reality stories of human wonder, whether involving children or hopeful adults. John Williams has composed the musical scores of nearly all of Spielberg’s films (notable exception being “The Color Purple”). Without his melodies and memorable themes we might all still be able to enjoy swimming in the ocean.

Don’t steal his sandwich.

2. Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten (Citizen Kane, The Third Man, The Magnificent Ambersons) A kind of bizarre choice for a filmmaking creative team, but when you look at their films together, Welles and Cotton — both part of the same radio performance group who brought the world to its’ knees when they broadcast War of the Worlds — dominate every scene together, and apart. Welles as Harry Lime has one of the best character introductions, anticipated through the first half of “The Third Man,” and the impact is felt when looking at Cotten’s reaction to seeing his childhood friend alive.

Ride the Stache.…

3. Tom Selleck and his Mustache (Quigley Down Under, Mr. Baseball, Three Men and a Baby) Don’t whine how this doesn’t qualify. Sure, it’s a mustache. Sure, it goes where Selleck goes, all the time. This team is inseparable — and unbeatable. Nobody messes with the stache, and, therefore, you do not mess with the Selleck.

It’s the secret ingredient.

4. Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon (The Apartment, Some Like it Hot) In film, Comedies are always hard to make funny. It’s a fact. You have to worry about the shot you’re getting, what you’re going to show the audience, the characters in the scene, and the timing of the actors. Wilder gets it right nearly every time, and it certainly doesn’t hurt to have Jack Lemmon, one of film’s greatest physical and verbal comedic actors, every step of the way. Lemmon is believable and sympathetic as an average schlub in love in The Apartment. We root for him to win Shirley MacLaine’s heart, and our own hearts break as she falls for the jerk instead. Despite the tugs on the heartstrings, nothing relieves an audience more than the comfort of Lemmon straining spaghetti through a tennis racket.

The Western’s western makers.

5. John Ford and John Wayne (The Searchers, Stagecoach, The Quiet Man) Men, and Westerns, and women. John Wayne and John Ford collaborated on 20 films (at least), defining an American film genre, and crystallizing the mere idea that our landscape and the stories it tells can be captured and remembered on celluloid.

6. Sylvestor Stallone and Montages (Rocky III, IV, V, and Rocky Balboa) You cannot — and should not — have a Sly film without a montage. It’s a law, I believe.

I watch. You read.

7. Humphrey Bogart and John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre) This duo helped define Film Noir, and if there’s a detective movie out there without at least one reference to The Maltese Falcon, I dare you to show me.

8. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) Male-themed bonding over finger-guns may be the all-time favorite collaboration here. Wright’s slick editing style, along with Pegg’s wit and quick-thinking, make for a perfect team for the not-so-perfect 20s crowd.

Nom-Nom-Noms.

9. Woody Allen and various young women under the age of 35 (including Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow, Mira Sorvino, Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz) The Wood-ster is a jack-of-all-trades, leading ten of his actresses to Oscar nominations since the 70s (four of them won).

The dude playin’ a dude.….

10. Robert Downey, Jr., and himself (Tropic Thunder, Chaplin, Iron Man, Zodiac) There is no other actor working today who has as much on-screen chemistry when he is alone as he has when he is acting with other people. Check out this scene for an example.

Sound back in the comments below with your preferred filmmaking team, with recommendations.

Until next time,

Sgt. Angle