4 Huge Roles Actors Declined (And What They Chose Instead)

Apparently, Selleck was offered the role, but had to turn it down to keep making Magnum P.I., a show about facial hair and cocaine.

Sure, it's hard to imagine Jones as anyone other than Harrison Ford, but that might just be because I grew up watching Ford in those movies. If I were Tom Selleck and had decided to be a TV detective instead of one of the greatest action movie heroes of all time, I might feel differently. I might be very good at imagining myself as Indiana Jones, because maybe I do it every night ... Right up until I make this movie:

If you haven't seen Quigley Down Under, you should. It's fun! Kinda dated, maybe racist, but Alan Rickman plays an evil Australian rancher obsessed with American cowboy stories, so all is forgiven. It's also clearly an attempt by Selleck to create a character like Indiana Jones. Matthew Quigley is charming, rakish, a supernaturally good shot with his custom rifle, and has a cool hat. The movie also sets up lots of later adventures. Quigly is only "Down Under" because he takes a job in Australia -- as a gun for hire, his adventures could take him anywhere. The next one could've been Quigley Up North, Quigley In Space, Quigley: Ragnarok, Quigley Jumps The Narrow Gap, and so on.

Of course, it didn't work out. There are not, and never will be, any more Matthew Quigley adventures. And to this day, Selleck's greatest pop culture contribution will be his Waterfall Sandwich song.*

*Hey everyone, remember when the most fun part of the internet was sharing insane, surreal humor stuff we found in the oddest places? I always liked that a lot more than articles about how the world's ending, so let's bring it back. OK? Back to my article about movies.

Regardless, Sean Connery didn't "get it," so the next time he got a script he "didn't understand," he made it, even though that movie was ...

Remember The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen? That adaptation of Alan Moore's epic love letter to 19th-century literature which decided to add Tom Sawyer (so we could have an American character) and turn Moore's confident, reserved interpretation of Mina Harker into a vampire (because vampires are cool)? The movie which takes place largely on a submarine and made Dr. Jekyll into the Hulk for some reason? Pretty much the same as Lord Of The Rings, right?

Anyway, Connery quit acting shortly after that movie came out, which is the funniest way to end your career. After being James Bond and Indiana Jones' dad, Connery became so mad that two iconic movies didn't feature him that he got revenge by making LXG. Then he yelled, "I don't understand you kids anymore!" and retired to his gigantic money castle, which I am sure resembles an actual set from Lord Of The Rings.

Hey, speaking of Lord Of The Rings ...

Part of the reason it's not so memorable is the conspicuous absence of Will Smith, who Welcome-To-Earth'd his way into all our hearts way back in 1996. The '90s were when we all realized that we loved seeing Will Smith punch aliens and rap about it, but hated seeing him punch cowboys and cripples and rap about it. We learned a lot about ourselves in the '90s. It was an important time.

Smith originally wanted to return in the sequel, and the story would've been structured around his character and his son. But then After Earth bombed, and Smith decided to drop out because, according to director Roland Emmerich, he was skeptical to do another science fiction movie about a father/son duo.

I love that, OK? Smith thought that After Earth bombed not because it was such a transparent attempt to buy his son an acting career that M. Night Shyamalan was the only director desperate or gullible enough to be involved, but because we just weren't ready for father/son sci-fi epics. And hey, maybe he's right? Suicide Squad was a urinary cake sandwich that still managed to gross $745 million and set all kinds of box office records (it's the biggest opening of Smith's entire career!), because apparently audiences were dying to see Jared Leto in Joker makeup and Cara Delevingne do some funktown shuffles in front of a green screen.

So the running theme in this article is that it's really hard to tell why audiences like some things but hate other things. There's a kind of ineffable magic to why some movies -- or, say, list-based internet articles -- are successful, and it's really tempting to chase that kind of magical success and try to relive times in your past when you've come close but missed it. But the point of learning from mistakes isn't to dwell on them and to try to change the past; it's about learning and making better choices in the future. Because otherwise, you just end up making The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And besides, there's still a chance Pacific Rim: Uprising will be pretty good, even though Charlie Hunnam isn't in it.

JF Sargent is a senior editor and columnist for Cracked and 2007 Hale Hall Super Smash Bros. Champion. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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