13 Stars Who Were Fired From Big Movies

When the average person watches a movie they might not think about the hard work that went into it. Sure, they might be aware of some of it, but surely most of the backstory remains a mystery -- often for a good reason, as films have publicists, too. One thing that we often don't hear about until much later is the casting process -- more specifically, who was originally considered for parts or even cast and then fired long before the finished product hit the theater. Here are 13 famous people and very famous films where some serious hiring, firing, and rehiring went down during the making of the movies.

13 Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway was originally offered the role of Alison Scott in the comedy Knocked Up. She wasn't comfortable with the scene where the character gives birth, so instead of changing things, Judd Apatow let her go and gave Katherine Heigl the role instead. The movie ended up being a huge success and basically launched Katherine's career so you could see what a bummer that would be, but Anne didn't seem to suffer too much by missing out on the project.

12 Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling was originally cast to the play the role of the father Jack Salmon in the film adaptation of the huge bestselling novel The Lovely Bones, but his preparation ended up getting him fired. Ryan gained 60 pounds in order to look the way he thought the character should, but when he showed up on set to start shooting, director Peter Jackson was not pleased. He fired Ryan and gave the role to Mark Wahlberg. The film, however, didn't do so well, despite being highly anticipated. The critics didn't love the film and neither did movie goers.

11 Megan Fox

When Megan Fox was cast in Transformers, it bascially made her career, but that didn't keep her from speaking her mind about director Michael Bay. Megan straight up compared him to Hitler and was fired from the franchise entirely. Megan did work with Michael Bay again on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but her remarks did slow her down a bit.

10 Judy Garland

Judy Garland, of course, found fame playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but things didn't go quite so smoothly after that. Judy was originally cast as Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls but was ultimately fired for being drunk on set. It's sort of ironic since the book and film adaptation are about the substance abuse of women in Los Angeles. The character was described as a successful woman on Broadway for many years, and the role ended up going to Susan Hayward. Judy passed away a few years later of a drug overdose.

9 Samantha Morton

Samantha Morton was not only cast as the computer operating voice in Her, but she actually recorded all of her voiceovers. Once the movie wrapped, director Spike Jonze decided that he just wasn't feeling it and ended up redoing everything and hiring Scarlett Johansson. Since Scarlett wasn't there to see the rest of the film shot, Joaquin Phoenix (who starred as the man who falls in love with her) helped her throughout the post production process to make sure everything was right.

8 Richard Gere

Richard Gere was originally cast in 1974's The Lords of Flatbush alongside Henry Winkler and Sylvester Stallone. Richard and Sly didn't get along at all, and Richard was fired. Here's what Sylvester once said about the incident: "The director had to make a choice: one of us had to go, one of us had to stay. Richard was given his walking papers and to this day seriously dislikes me."

7 Stuart Townsend

Stuart Townsend was originally cast to play Aragorn in Lord of the Rings. He spent two months training to learn swordsmanship and combat moves before he was suddenly fired. The reason supposedly didn't have to do with his performance but that he simply looked too young. You would think that would be something they considered before they actually hired the guy, but who knows what went down. The role ended up going to Viggo Mortensen who certainly pulled it off.

6 Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone was actually offered the role of Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop, but before him, the first choice was Mickey Rourke. Mickey left because of production and contract issues, and Sylvester was down for the role but wanted the film to be harder and edgier. The producers were not interested in his ideas, so they let him go only two weeks before filming began. They ultimately hired Eddie Murphy and rewrote a lot of the script to accommodate the change. Talk about leaving things to the last minute.

5 Eric Stoltz

Eric Stolz was the original choice to play the role of Marty McFly in Back to the Future, but only because their first choice, Michael J. Fox, was, well, tied up with the TV show Family Ties. Eric made it through four weeks of filming but Robert Zemeckis decided that Eric couldn't handle the role's humor. Ultimately, they worked things out with Michael and his crazy schedule. Although he basically had to run back and forth from one set to the other, he ended up making it work.

4 James Remar

James Remar was originally cast in 1986's Aliens, but the actor couldn't get along with director James Cameron. He was replaced by Michael Biehn who had worked with Cameron before. James blames a drug problem for on-set complications that got him fired, and he never really went on to find leading man status. He did find himself a pretty good niche in supporting roles on shows like Sex and The City and Dexter. 

3 Jean-Claude Van Damme

Jean-Claude Van Damme was hired to play the alien opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987's Predator, and at the time he was an unknown martial artist hoping to break into acting. Jean-Claude wasn't interested in the "work your way up" approach and had issue with the fact that no one would actually see his face in the film. He was replaced by Kevin Peter Hall. The firing didn't seem to set Jean-Claude back and he had a pretty good run in the 80s and 90s before becoming a reality TV staple.

2 Frank Sinatra

The film Dirty Harry was originally written for Frank Sinatra, not Clint Eastwood. Frank didn't get fired for any bad reasons but because he broke his wrist on the set of The Manchurian Candidate and wasn't sure he could handle even lifting the gun that the role required.  The producers agreed and ultimately the part went to Clint Eastwood instead… but not before a few other people turned it down. John Wayne wasn't interested in the leftovers and neither were Robert Mitchum or Burt Lancaster. Lucky for Clint, very lucky indeed.

1 Harvey Keitel

Harvey Keitel was originally supposed to star in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. A few weeks into filming, Coppola felt he had made the wrong decision. He then hired Martin Sheen instead. Harvey did not hold anything against Coppola for the decision, and he might have even been happy about it when he heard that Sheen got so stressed out during production that he actually had a heart attack.