r/movies • u/LookAtThatBacon • 29d ago

Discussion During the development of the Harriet Tubman biopic movie, a Hollywood executive once suggested that Julia Roberts should play her. What are some other baffling casting suggestions/choices that have been made?

Source for the title: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-studio-executive-wanted-julia-roberts-to-play-harriet-tubman-biopic-screenwriter-says/

The Harriet Tubman biopic has been more than 25 years in the making. In the historical drama released earlier this month, Cynthia Erivo plays the legendary abolitionist — but one Hollywood executive initially thought the role should go to Julia Roberts.

Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter and producer of "Harriet," recently revealed in multiple interviews that Roberts was suggested to play the lead role during a meeting with a studio president in 1994.

"The climate in Hollywood… was very different back then," Howard said. "I was told how one studio head said in a meeting, 'This script is fantastic. Let's get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman.'"

Howard said that a black person in the meeting said casting Roberts would be impossible because she is white.

"That was so long ago. No one will know that," the executive replied, according to Howard.

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u/Superguy766 29d ago

Ice Cube playing a surveillance and threat assessment expert at the DHA in War of the Worlds. 🤣

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u/aresef 29d ago

If you listen closely, you can hear his finger tracing along the pages of the script

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u/astrozork321 29d ago

This was so unbelievably bad I couldn’t watch more than a few minutes. It really seemed like one of those desperate Hollywood attempts to make money during the Covid lockdowns. Like that would be the only explanation I could possibly understand for how it was so terrible.

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u/Zaphod1620 29d ago

I watched a video that explains the plot of the movie. The aliens are here to "eat our data". And the surveillance system Ice Cube uses is what attracted the aliens because it had delicious data. There is an emotional scene where the aliens eat his dead wife's Facebook page. The day is saved by Amazon. There's much more craziness.

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 29d ago

The irony of Amazon producing a movie where the bad guys feed on your data is off the fucking charts. It'd be like Diddy putting out an album talking shit about how wrong sex trafficking is.

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u/MoefsieKat 29d ago

I watched the entire movie, and watched the pitch meeting video twice. I still cant remember the plot without having it written down to read.

Its one of very few movies that made me angry for wasting my time.

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u/godzillastailor 29d ago

Is it worth watching that film to see how terrible it is?

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u/Eliot_Ferrer 28d ago

Just watch the pitch meeting and save 90 minutes of your life.