Replacing Actors for Established Roles--Not Easy

I've already blogged that I'm not happy with the new star on the latest Transporter movie. Ed Skrein is no Jason Statham, not even close. Which means he's wrong for the role of Frank Martin, yet they made the movie anyway. I'm not going to see it. At least not in the theaters.

Speaking of replacing actors for established roles, Roger Moore, and all the other actors who have played James Bond were not close to being Sean Connery. I will concede that Daniel Craig made a good James Bond, however, but it took some forty years to finally find an actor right for the role since Connery.

Chris Pine is horrible as James Kirk, btw. I don't know why he got the role, but probably no one but William Shatner could play that part, so it didn't matter who they cast. Interestingly, Zach Quinto made a good Spock, but no one else in the Star Trek reboot worked as well as Quinto. Worse than Pine as Kirk was Zoe Saldana as Uhura. But then again, just as only William Shatner could play Kirk, only Nichelle Nichols could play Uhura, so it was another impossible task.

Probably the worst recasting of all time was Will Smith as James West. I mean, what were they thinking? Well, I know what they were thinking, but it was nothing but wrong. As for the Spider-man movies? It really didn't matter. Tobey Maguire was never right for the part, so replacing him was the right thing to do. Chris Reeves and Brandon Routh were good as Superman, but Henry Cavill I think plays the part better than all others before him. Cavill to me is Superman, just as Connery was Bond and Statham was Frank Martin.

One thing that disappoints me is they never found the right actor to be Conan. Arnold and Jason Mamoa were not good enough for the part, and I don't think the right actor even exists. Perhaps more importantly, you need the right director for a Conan movie. In a perfect world, it would have been Peter Jackson making Conan movies. The directors for the prior ones did nothing but butcher the Conan legend. I'd rather have no movie than the ones they made about Conan. But the world isn't perfect. That much is certain.