The hero of the new sci-fi adventure
“Jumper” is blessed with the ability to teleport from one place to another in the blink of an eye, but an even more remarkable occurrence happened during the film’s production.
Between the initial casting process and the final day of shooting, the lead actors mysteriously morphed from relative unknowns Tom Sturridge (“Being Julia”) and Teresa Palmer (“December Boys”) to the more recognizable man-who-would-be-Vader, Hayden Christensen, and “The OC” vixen Rachel Bilson. Quite a nifty feat.
Sadly there’s no exciting sci-fi explanation for the switch, it’s simply Hollywood economics. Most reports allege that “Jumper’s” ballooning budget required familiar faces in the leads—the better to lure in audiences and reclaim those costs—so the original stars were
rejected re-cast.
The last-minute rotation of actors in pivotal roles seems to have become a fad lately. Mark Wahlberg joined the cast of director Peter Jackson’s eagerly awaited literary adaptation “The Lovely Bones” when Ryan Gosling dropped out due to “creative differences.” And both leads of the upcoming political thriller “State of Play” dropped out before the start of production—Brad Pitt citing script issues, and Edward Norton to resolve a scheduling conflict—to be replaced by Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck, respectively.
Although this kind of cinematic pinch-hitting often looks like a sign of desperation, there are numerous examples where the results have been so indelibly right it seems downright wrong to imagine anyone else in the role.
Here’s a look at some of the most memorable performances by “second choice” stars.
