Stallone as Harry Higgins in My Fair Lady.

Charles Laughton as Mr Cunningham on Happy days.

Jack Webb instead of Harry Reems in...the entire ouevre.

Harry Reems as Magnum, P.I.

Pam Grier as Cagney in, Cagney and Lacey.

I wish they had cast Alicia Witt or SOMEbody other than Kirsten Dunst (who I don't really mind that much, for the record) as MJ in the Spider Man movies. Ms. Dunst isn't a redhead, needs a sandwich, and can't scream.

Yeah and her eyes are too far apart or something, she looks like a praying mantis.

Claire Danes. Somebody. It really bothers me.

Gary Busey or, even better, Nick Nolte as Roy Hobbs in the film version of The Natural instead of Robert Redford: Either actor would've seemed a more authentically rough-hewn, working-class-hero sort, closer to the Hobbs of Malamud's novel than Redford's middle-aged but still angelic chiseled good looks and quiet demeanor connoted. But that casting decision would've worked only if Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry had had the guts to see the Malamud storyline through and retell it as the Americanized Greek tragedy it was -- "Casey at the Bat" as retold by Euripedes -- instead of the jarring rah-rah victory sequence at the end and the "Hallmark card" coda that made me turn to my college friend and say, "Here were are: The official movie of the 1984 Republican National Convention." (We saw it that summer in Dallas. That one movie constituted the beginning of my disillusionment with Hollywood.) I pity people who saw the movie and are not aware of the novel's crucial difference and its significance, even if they couldn't be bothered to read it, and casting Redford seemed hand-in-hand with inverting and subverting the story's meaning.

I'd've liked to have seen what Eli Wallach could've done with Lee Marvin's character -- simply "The Sergeant," no name given, in Sam Fuller's The Big Red One -- and besides the proven tough-guy talent of Marvin, the only other draw they had was Mark Hamill of Star Wars fame. Marvin's almost a self-parody at times with the one-note tough-guy cliché, which is why he's worked so well in mindless crap like Delta Force, but Wallach might've been able to show you glimpses of the man who became the warrior even better than Marvin did.

Keiran Culkin as Frodo insead of ....that guy....I can't remember his name and I'm too lazy to look it up.

I wish they'd have kept Bert Lancaster, who originally got the role, in Kiss of the Spider Woman. When William Hurt became available, they gave it to him.

I have always thought that it would have been a better movie with Lancaster in that role.

The other one that gets me is Joaquin Phonenix (who I also sort of like) as Commidus in Gladiator. He was way out of his depth. Any of the cats from Saving Private Ryan (yes, including Vin Diesel) would have been better. Or an English actor. Surely there was somebody else.

Burt Lancaster? Oh, man, we wuz robbed, for sure.

The other one that gets me is Joaquin Phonenix (who I also sort of like) as Commidus in Gladiator. He was way out of his depth. Any of the cats from Saving Private Ryan (yes, including Vin Diesel) would have been better. Or an English actor. Surely there was somebody else.

Wow. We must have seen different versions or something. (I think the Academy saw the same one as me)

Most Hollywood actors do such a consistently good job that I rarely have a problem with them. 99% of the time the problems are in the script or the direction.

That said, Butterfly Effect might have been a good movie if they had cast anyone besides Ashton Kutcher. Garden State was pretty weak regardless, but it might have had some charm if both Braff and Portman had been replaced with better actors.

Oh, and I would like to see Ed "Al Bundy" O'Neill cast in just about anything.

I wish they cast Lee Van Cleef in all male roles in all movies and Claudia Cardinale in all female roles. Even kids and pets. For transvestites, transgenders, etc., I'd dress Lee Van Cleef as Claudia Cardinale and vice versa, and use camera tricks to make it appear as if there were even hundreds of Van Cleefs and Cardinales in the room together. My art would be most difficult (and most celebrated) in dancing scenes, whether they be from Zeffirelli Shakespeare flicks or West Side Story or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers with seven Lees and seven Claudias dancing at the barn-raising and fighting with a town full of Lee Van Cleefs. Except for Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc: I'd leave Maria Falconetti in. But I'd add on an ending where out of the flames come those haints and angels of death from the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc, and the English would all be wiped out to a man in graphic, explosive, head-bubbling fashion for making Ms. Falconetti cry.

Oh, if it could only come true.

For crying out loud, Hugh, the lost Arc? It's not a fucking parabola, you dick, it's the damn covenant between man and god you're talking about here. Get it right!

I know I've thought of a ton of these over the years but the only one that's coming to mind {POSSIBLE HEROES SPOILER}





is Patrick McGoohan as Linderman instead of Malcolm McDowell.

Favorite film that never got made? Kaufman/Ryskind/Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing starring the Marx Brothers. Oh god that would have been soooooo good.

Oh, they should've let Joanna Lumley play Dr. Who for real at some point instead of just in that one charity special.

Adam West is so underrated, in my opinion. Just take a look at the brilliant but cancelled Conan O'Brien/Robert Smigel project Lookwell! (I've posted this before). It might be fun to see Shat Bat though, just for kicks.

Wow drjimmy, I really liked both leads in Garden State. In fact, I thought Natalie was the most likeable she'd been since Leon.

I'd like to see Christian Bale in more movies, but I can't think of anything specific. Darn it.

I just watched Casino Royale, and although I admired Daniel Craig's raw physicality and nice shoulders, he was so craggly-faced! When he attempted to smile charmingly, he just sort of creeped me out. Also, his pectoral muscles were entirely over-developed.

In other words, Christian Bale should have been given this part, as well as every part requiring a tough/sensitive/strong/mysterious man.

There we go! Christian Bale as Bond. Yes!

Me as The Dude.

Jennifer Connelly as Catwoman in Batman Returns.

Christian Bale as Bond? No! That would take up way too much of his time; the time he needs to spend perfecting his greatest role ever, that of my love slave.

Also, his pectoral muscles were entirely over-developed.

Bale's are even bigger -- the guy's so ripped it isn't even funnay

How about Claudia Cardinale as Catwoman! And Lee Van Cleef as James Bond.

Love slave? Need I remind you that Christian Bale is Patrick Bateman? (He's also a young J.G. Ballard, which bloodies... err... muddies the waters even more).

???

You might think I'm obsessed or crazy, but I'm not. I'm just listening to Hüsker Dü right now, and things tend to get a little haywire when I do.

POWERLINE!

Jennifer Connelly as Catwoman in Batman Returns.

Or Jenny Conlee. that would work for me, very well.

Casablanca is close enough to being the perfect movie as makes no difference. That said, I'd love to see a version in which Bogart and Claude Raines switched roles. For that matter, I'd be even more excited about Bogart and Peter Lorre switching, if for no other reason than to see what they did with the scene where Lorre's character says, "You despise me, don't you, Rick?", and Bogart's responds, "If I gave you any thought, I probably I would".

Similarly, my wife accidentally came up with the brilliant idea of a comedy team of Stephen Fry and Peter Lorre (as opposed to Hugh Laurie).

Clive Owen as James Bond.

Either Jack Nicholson and Christian Slater or Gabriel Byrne and Jake Gyllenhaal playing father and son.

Richard Castellano as Clemenza in The Godfather: Part II (he wouldn't appear in the movie because he wanted more money). A great movie would've been even better.

Similarly, Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen in The Godfather: Part III. A sucky movie would've been marginally less sucky. (I'm one of the few people who didn't hate Sofia Coppola in the movie--she was an awkward teenage girl playing an awkward teenage girl--but there was no thematic reason for the movie.)