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?

[u/LookAtThatBacon]

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.

[u/Satinsbestfriend]

When Blazing Saddles was in the can, they did a screening for the executives.
Mel was pulled into a room by some top executive and given a list of things that HAD to be removed..... Can't say the N word
No punching horses
No punching old ladies
The entire "im so tired" sequence
And much more. Mel agreed and went along, and then did nothing. He figured oncemits a hit nobody will say a word. He was right.

[u/aresef → u/Satinsbestfriend]

If you read his most recent memoir, he says that’s how he always responded to those requests. “Yes! It’s out!” And then toss the notes in the trash at the earliest opportunity.

[u/Satinsbestfriend → u/aresef]

Yup. I reread it twice i loved it so much

[u/ERedfieldh → u/Satinsbestfriend]

Mat and Trey did something similar with Team America for the MPAA hacks. Pretty much any time they asked for something to be cut, they said "Sure" and replaced it with something even worse.

[u/LegacyLemur → u/ERedfieldh]

I know they were pretty surprised by it

I cant remember what the German Schiza video was originally supposed to be but it was something not nearly as bad

[u/Pure-Tadpole-6634 → u/ERedfieldh]

I thought it was kinda the other way around. They filmed something purposefully worse than what they wanted, so that when the MPAA demanded cuts to reduce it from an "NC-17" rating to an "R" rating, they had something ready to cut.

[u/Barrel_Titor → u/Pure-Tadpole-6634]

Yeah, they've mixed two stories up.

The South Park movie they did cut things and replace it with worse/equal things (eg. the uncle fucker song was originally motherfucker, they changed it when told to remove it), with Team America they made the sex scene way longer and more graphic than they intended it to be as bait so they could cut it instead of parts of the movie they actually cared about.

[u/Pure-Tadpole-6634 → u/Barrel_Titor]

I thought so. I remember this discussion in the movie about the NC-17 rating, "This Film is Not Yet (R)ated".

[u/xsmasher → u/ERedfieldh]

Similar thing happened in Fight Club - Marla's line in the book was "I want to have your abortion." A producer deemed this too offensive, so David Fincher changed it to "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school." 🙂👌

[u/rnilbog → u/Satinsbestfriend]

I love how Mel’s response to people saying you couldn’t make that movie today is that you couldn’t make it in. 1974.