Sometimes, actors want changes to their movie's script. They might want a line rewritten because they can't pronounce a word, or for their character to have a slightly different personality because they think it will play better, or to have tons of unexplained wardrobe changes because they'd like to steal some clothes. But that's all small stuff. Sometimes the changes they want are much, much bigger. Changes like ...
Lucasfilm
There was a spoiler in that title, incidentally. So ... heads up.
It's not exactly a secret that Harrison Ford has been trying to kill Han Solo for years. During the filming of the original trilogy, Ford felt that Solo's character arc -- a self-centered rogue who slowly grows to believe in something greater -- would have been capped off nicely with a meaningful death scene during Return Of The Jedi.
Lucasfilm Or at the very least, a slapstick one.
But Han Solo didn't die in Jedi. (That was another spoiler, sorry, sorry.) This annoyed Ford, who by this point clearly had mixed feelings about how much people associated him with that character. Check out this interview Ford has with David Letterman. He is nominally there promoting Blade Runner, and after Letterman asks him a question about Return Of The Jedi you can see how close he comes to boiling over.
NBCUniversal Television Distribution Serious danger of a "Han shoots first" moment here.
It was awkward, and moments later, he'd storm out of the interview.
Decades later, you could tell he was still kind of carrying this chip around on his shoulder. When promoting The Force Awakens on Jimmy Kimmel's show, Kimmel asked Ford if he was grateful that his character endured for so many years. Ford clearly had to think about this a bit before answering.
Disney–ABC Domestic Television There were, uh, a few things going on in this interview, actually.
But in that same interview, he again talks openly about his desire to see the character killed off. He does it again on the same show a few months later (although for some reason, this time he isn't dressed as a hot dog). And then there was that Jimmy Fallon interview wherein, upon being asked if he got emotional when he put Han's costume back on, the cantankerous professional handsome man answered, "No, I got paid."
J.J. Abrams reportedly discussed Solo's death extensively with Ford. And although we don't have evidence that Ford's side of this conversation involved seizing Abrams by the lapels and screaming "Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes," boy, we wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly how it happened.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Sam Worthington first rose to fame following the success of Avatar. You might remember it. It was the really blue movie.
20th Century Fox Like The Smurfs, but without all the sexual tension.
Following this, Worthington began getting offered lots of big hero roles, which was how he found himself cast as Perseus in Clash Of Titans, a remake of a classic 1980s B-movie. During the production of Clash, everyone knew it would need to be "refreshed" a bit from its goofy source material, and Worthington took a particular interest in this editing process. Notably, he (an actor, let's keep in mind) insisted that a key character from the original movie, the creepy mechanical owl Bubo, get written out.
United Artists "I'm Sam Worthington, you son of a bitch, and I ONLY work with blue creatures."
This was more than a gentle suggestion. He would scream at and threaten violence against the owl, and accuse it (and the director) of sabotaging his career. In the end, the poor benighted creature's role was reduced to a small cameo, in which Worthington's character finds it and is told, "It's nothing, just leave it."
There's more. Worthington wasn't a big fan of togas, so out they went. (Again, this is a film about Greek people.) Also, there were other issues in the script which he felt needed work. Like his opinion that Perseus, a half man, half God, should be more half man ... half man. And even though Greek mythology is almost entirely about heroes bound by inescapable fates, he didn't like that either. So out goes fate.
So yeah, pretty fundamental changes to the canon of Greek mythology. And the reason behind all this madness? He was trying to impress his nine-year-old nephew. (Who'd probably have liked to see the robot owl in the first place.)
Universal Pictures
Prior to agreeing to star in Wanted, the most ballistically creative movie in recent memory, Angelina Jolie had some issues with the script. Not physics-related issues -- no, the curving bullet stuff was all fine with her. Her problem was that it didn't feel right for her character -- an assassin manipulated by sinister forces -- to get away with the murder of so many innocent people. She insisted that after learning the true nature of her work, her hardened hitman would take her own life.
In the least plausible way imaginable.
So that's the end of that, right? Wrong!
Except also right.
The problem is that the movie made quite a bit of money for Universal, which has left the studio anxious to make a sequel. A problem only slightly slowed down by the fact that the first film killed its biggest star and didn't in any way leave itself open for a sequel. But you know, writers are cheap. They can fix that kind of thing. Even with her character dead, the studio has been trying to get Jolie back on board the project for years.
But she's not biting. So you have to ask yourself: How many times does someone have to express mild disinterest, and then strong disinterest, and then shoot themselves in the head, before you get the message? Move on, Universal. She's just not that into you.
Universal Pictures
The 2006 film adaptation of Miami Vice was "troubled," as these things are often called. A demanding director, the threat of gang violence, and actual hurricanes will do that. The violence was a particularly thorny issue. One shooting location in the Dominican Republic was so dangerous that even the local police wouldn't go near it. The production apparently had to recruit full-blown gang members to provide security.
The gang members did an amazing job, though, in that they didn't shoot anyone. Which wasn't the case a few days later, when a cop approached the set, got in argument with a security guard, and was shot.
Universal Pictures Nice work, gangs. Gonna get a nice endorsement on your LinkedIn page for that.
So star Jamie Foxx walked off the set. No more filming outside the U.S. for him. And in his defense, that's about one more police shooting than anyone should ever feel comfortable facilitating. But in his ... offense? ... by this point, Foxx had acquired a bit of a reputation as a diva around the production. He'd just won an Academy Award, and was reportedly getting a little fussy around the set. Demanding private jets. Refusing to work around boats and planes. Stuff like that.
Boats and planes being famously unimportant parts of the Miami Vice universe.
Faced with an unfinished movie and half his main cast missing, the director Michael Mann was forced to bring the shoot to Foxx. A finale planned to be shot in Paraguay was scrapped, and the whole production was relocated to Miami. Mann ultimately felt that the new ending was the better one, but he'd kind of say that, wouldn't he? Who knows what Paraguayan glory we missed out on.
Columbia Pictures
Crispin Glover was struck by an intense case of artistic integrity while filming Charlie's Angels, which you will of course recall is the most artistically principled movie ever made. Glover's main beef was with the script -- in particular, how awful it was.
Columbia Pictures And, you know, fair enough. Well-spotted, Crispin.
His biggest issue was that the lines written for his character, the Creepy Thin Man, were awful and "just expositional." And although this was Charlie's Angels, and the fact that he didn't have to deliver any of these lines while slowly bending over to pick something off the ground made him the most well-rounded character in the film, he wouldn't budge. His lines were awful. Something had to change.
Now, some of the more observant Charlie's Angels scholars among you might recall that Glover didn't actually have any lines in the movie. And that's because of the solution he came up with for the problem, which was to simply refuse to say any of his lines. Glover suggested that his character remain mute for the entire film, and was granted his wish.
Columbia Pictures Possibly because everyone on the production was eager for the prospect of not having to listen to him.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Jack Nicholson is a good actor, and no one knows it more than he does. Which is to say that he has a tendency to get his way. As an example, when Nicholson was offered a small part in Martin Scorsese's Boston-based gangster movie, The Departed, he refused. He wasn't excited about the role. But, you know, he's Jack, and after a bit of a sitdown and a bit of a chin-wag, they found a solution: They made the part way, way bigger.
Warner Bros. Pictures "Coulda' saved yourselves a lot of time if you'd done that in the first place, boys."
But Scorsese did more than make the part bigger; he let Nicholson help define nearly every aspect of the character. For example, because Nicholson's a famous Yankees fan, the Boston-based Irish gangster he was playing couldn't wear a Red Sox hat.
Warner Bros. Pictures Scorsese managed to talk him out of changing the character's name to Jeter Rules, though.
Another example: Because Nicholson wanted the role to have a lot more fucking, they added a lot more fucking. He was convinced that his character should have a sex scene to showcase his immorality. Or something.
Warner Bros. Pictures We were lucky it didn't showcase more of him.
Which is how a 70-year-old man ended up in a sex scene with two prostitutes and fistfuls of (probably) simulated cocaine. All but a few seconds of this scene were cut from the final film, but at least that must have been a fun day on the set for Nicholson. And isn't that what it's all about?
Oh, it's not? It's about the movie? Huh.
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Carolyn Burke
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