Whether its contract disputes, long stretches between films, or a franchise reboot, superhero movie franchises sometimes see major roles recast. The following 6 switches were like kryptonite to comic book film fans.
6- Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane
Granted, we never expected anyone from the original series of Superman movies to make a return, but we hoped the actors in Superman Returns could continue the legacy of the previous movies--well, the first two, at least. Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor managed to be every bit as evil as Gene Hackman's, and while the jury's still out on Brandon Routh as a replacement for the late Christopher Reeve, Kate Bosworth's turn as a dour Lois Lane left us yearning for the craziness of Margot Kidder. Kidder played Lois Lane perfectly, with a perfect amount of professional competence and confidence to make mild-mannered Clark Kent a blubbering moron in her presence. Once work went out the window and Superman flew into the picture, she fell head over heels. While Bosworth's got the beauty for the role, she lacked the charisma to bend the Man of Steel. Heck, we would have even taken Teri Hatcher over Boz's lifeless performance.
5- Donatello sans Corey Feldman
The live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies weren't just about gawking at martial artists in ridiculous costumes, they were also about taking the corniness of the hit cartoon show and slapping it on the big screen. Feldman, who was actually relevant in Hollywood in the early 90's, lended his distinctive voice to Donatello in the first hit movie. For some reason, Adam Carl, an unknown actor took the role in the second film. While his perfomance wasn't as offensive as, say, the Ninja Rap, it still couldn't match Feldman's more authentic performance as a party-loving turtle. As weird as that sentence sounded, it actually rung true, as the producers decided to give the role back to Felrman for the final live-action chapter of the Turtles trilogy.
4- Liv Tyler as Betty Ross
Ang Lee didn't do much right with his overly dramatic direction of Hulk, but he did manage to cast some top-tier actors in the right roles (we'll forget about Nick Nolte for a moment). Eric Bana played a pretty decent Bruce Banner, though his performance couldn't overcome the laughably stupid looking CGI Hulk. Jennifer Connelly, however, conveyed the quiet and alluring Betty Ross remarkably, though still keeping a large measure of defiance against her father. While Connelly's performance was aided by Ang Lee's more emotion-heavy script, we're not sure some added dialog would have made Liv Tyler's performance any more palatable. The chemistry between her Betty Ross and Edward Norton's Bruce Banner is almost nonexistent, and there's not much emotional resonance when she interacts with her father either. For a character that exists as a sort of an emotional sounding board for two contentious men battling issues of rage, Betty Ross needs to be played by a woman who can pick up the slack and create chemistry. Unfortunately, Liv Tyler hasn't shown that thus far in her career, and she certainly didn't start with this role.
3- Clooney Almost Kills Batman
First things first; Val Kilmer's performance in Batman Forever was nowhere near as good as Michael Keaton in the first two Batman movies of the late 80's/early 90's. That being said, though his Bruce Wayne wasn't up to snuff, he did a decent job behind the mask, and his overall performance wasn't as much an affront to the franchise as the decision to affix nipples to the Batsuit. When Kilmer passed on the role for Batman and Robin, Clooney took over and alongside the similarly miscast Arnold Schwarzenegger, proceeded to drive the franchise into the ground so deep that it took almost a decade for the next Batman movie to materialize. Much like viewers of Daredevil learned years later, casting a heartthrob as a superhero never works well, especially if these guys are supposed to have easy-to-relate-to alter-egos. Sure, Bruce Wayne is a billionaire, but actors like Michael Keaton and Christian Bale manage to make him sympathetic to a degree. Whether he was donning the Batsuit or a business suit, Clooney couldn't hack it in Batman and Robin.
2- Brandon Lee dies, The Crow Lives
A tragic accident on the set of The Crow took the life of Brandon Lee while he was playing the role that would have probably vaulted him to levels of stardom his father Bruce had attained. His performance helped define The Crow as a different, darker breed of superhero that differed greatly from the campiness of Batman and the bright-eyed, All-American nature of Superman that movie audiences were used to at the time. The movie ended up becoming a surprise hit, and while its legacy should have ended with Lee, preserving the same level of reverence, Miramax couldn't let a sleeping crow lie, and produced three poor-performing sequels. The first actor to try to step into Lee's boots was Vincent Perez (playing a different person, but still donning the same black and white makeup as Lee), who couldn't capture the unique combination of brawn and broodiness that made the original so memorable. Seeing as how the next two Crow movies went straight-to-DVD, we're guessing the other actors didn't do any better.
1- Halle Berry, Catwoman
We're guessing that Michelle Pfeiffer's performance as Catwoman in Batman Returns played a pretty large part in Warner Brothers' decision to greenlight a standalone adventure for the sometimes-heroine, sometimes-villainess. However, when the movie came out, fans were appalled to find a film free of comic book canon and one caped crusader. Halle Berry plays Patience Phillips, an artist who quite literally gains the powers of a cat after a mystical feline revives her (Pfeiffer's Catwoman's backstory was similar, although she was mortal and had simply gone crazy after a near-death experience). Berry failed to convey why we should care for this alternate take, which was critical, since it deviated pretty far from the one conveyed in the comic, and on screen. And without Batman to bounce her feline charms off of, Berry's Catwoman had nobody to dig her claws into and make an emotional connection with. That goes for both in the movie and with audiences.
