6 Casting Choices In Marvel Movies That Sucked
However good a story, direction or anything in a movie is, casting remains vital. A good cast makes all the difference. A good film is forgotten because of forgettable casting. That is why it is absolutely necessary to make sure that casting for any movie is absolutely spot-on.
Casting, when done right, makes sure that actors not only portray characters well, they start ruling the hearts of the fans. Just think who else from any industry would you like to see as Wolverine instead of Hugh Jackman. Sometimes casting go a little wrong, other times they cause the movie to crash and burn. We take a look at 6 of the worst casting choices in Marvel Comics.
1)January Jones as Emma Frost
It felt like January Jones was wildly out of place when she played Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class. Matthew Vaughn’s period piece could have definitely benefitted from the Mad Men star, but as it would appear, Vaughn clearly isn’t sure what to do with her.
It says a lot about a franchise when big names like Emma Frost are dropped after just one movie without any good reason. The “stand there and look pretty” role of Jones definitely was no help.
2)Aaron-Taylor Johnson as Quicksilver(Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Aaron-Taylor Johnson had nothing to prove with this role, having already proven his quality as an actor with names under his belt like The Wall, Kick Ass series and Nocturnal Animals(for which he won a Golden Globe.)
He isn’t bad in Age of Ultron, he is boring. He doesn’t bring anything new to the table for the character. While his death should have made the viewers feel sad, it felt like something that was done to keep the story going.
3)Dolph Lundgren as Punisher
We often forget that before Marvel created the epic Punisher series, it took them a total of 4 times to get the anti-hero right on-screen. Probably the worst of the lot was the 1989 one starring Dolph Lundgren in the titular role.
Lundgren goes about the role as he would go about his usual action movies. Portraying the nuanced anti-hero as just another crazed, violent vindictive vigilante out for justice, Lundgren wasted a great chance to prove that he could be something more than his usual typecast roles.
4)Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm(Fantastic Four, 2015)
Of course, we aren’t saying that the original Fantastic Four movies were very great, they were fun to watch. Largely, the casting was well done too and nobody could complain about the casting for Ben Grimm.
While one can justify everything else about the movie, the casting choice for Ben Grimm makes no sense. While Ben is supposed to be quite brawny and rough, Jamie Bell seems out of his element in the role being somewhat scrawny himself. The whole movie did nothing to divert viewer attention from the pretty and scrawny Ben Grimm either.
5)Oscar Issac as Apocalypse
Rarely have we seen an actor of such talent squandered the way Oscar Issac was in X-Men Apocalypse. The smart people over at Fox came up with the bright idea to bury Issac’s talent under layers upon layers of makeup and generic villainous sounding dialogues.
They also forgot to use him properly in the movie but thankfully that can be forgiven because Apocalypse was not the titular villain(Oh wait! My bad). Oscar Issac unfortunately, turned out to be the most forgettable and disappointing part of the film.
6)Edward Norton as Bruce Banner(The Incredible Hulk)
It would be an understatement to say that Marvel avoids The Incredible Hulk and would rather not touch it with a 10-feet pole. With the main actor replaced and most of the events of the movie being retconned, this movie is still a part of the MCU.
On what most agree is that Edward Norton was probably the biggest problem of the film. He had reportedly tried to make changes to the final cut even as a lot of his ideas had already been incorporated during film-making. His on-set behaviour made sure that Marvel would never work with the talented actor.
