Which Casting Risk Ended Up Yielding the Biggest and Best Rewards?

Wolverine, Jack Sparrow, and Tony Stark are without a doubt three of the most iconic and popular movie characters of the 21st Century, and yet, none of the three roles were initially envisioned with the actor who ended up bringing them to such long-lasting and legendary life.

Dougray Scott was all set to play Logan in Bryan Singer's X-Men before Mission: Impossible II saw him drop out, with the unknown Hugh Jackman drafted in as his replacement two weeks after shooting started. Similarly, the Disney brass were so aghast with whatever Johnny Depp was doing on Pirates of the Caribbean that they considered getting rid of him altogether.

Then there's Robert Downey Jr., who was about as dangerous a gamble as it got given his high-profile misdeeds that had almost torpedoed his personal and professional life many times over, but we all know how that turned out in the end. There's no reward without risk, as they say, with Redditors doing their best to name the most prominent examples from cinematic history.

It's easy to forget that people created websites and petitions to campaign against Daniel Craig's hiring as James Bond, while tens of thousands of angry letters were sent to Warner Bros. headquarters to protest Michael Keaton being set as the lead of Tim Burton's Batman.

Heath Ledger was a handsome and charming young talent barely out of his mid-20s when he was announced as the Joker, Bruce Willis was a TV star before Die Hard, and the list goes on and on. Not to trot out another cliche, but there's a reason why hindsight is always 20/20.

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