Connery missed out on $450m not playing Gandalf
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sean-connery-death-actor-turned-104600142.html
Shocking
(and that was just the LOTR trilogy not including The Hobbitt)
Connery would have been cool to see as Gandalf, but it's hard to picture somebody knocking it out of the park as hard as McKellen did.
I doubt that Connery "missed out" on that money, either, since he was a wealthy man, and retired shortly thereafter, so I doubt he lacked for luxury due to his opting-out.
The only thing I find a touch tragic out of the whole thing was that passing on Lord of the Rings and The Matrix in short succession, each because Sir Sean didn't understand the scripts, made him accept the next script he didn't "get", assuming it, too, would be a blockbuster. That was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which caused his subsequent retirement, had him leaving the biz on a "down note", and possibly robbed us of another two or three Connery films of quality.
Yes not understanding LOTR or Matrix (either Morpheous or the Architect) is even more baffling when you consider he did Zardoz .
And yeh had he not finished on LXG maybe hed have done another few films.. hed have done Indy 4 for sure (either JohnHurts role or an end cameo at the wedding) as he pretty much said the only reason he didn't do that was as he adamant about his retirement (and he wouldve just assumed it'd be up to the standard of the previous one)
I get why somebody wouldn't understand The Matrix, or at least think it could just be another action movie, but Lord of the Rings seems like it'd be accessible, particularly because you'd think that he'd have heard of it. I know prior to the films not everybody had read them, but you'd think he'd have at least heard of it.
sharething with LOTR is no one really thought itd amount to much.. sword & sorcery and goblins elves etc had never been that big a deal at the cinema before so maybe he didnt see how this guy Peter Jackson would make it work (and 3 films back to back in NZ mustve seemed a daunting challenge..)
shareMaybe that's it; he just didn't have faith in the creative team. He sees an indie director attached as the writer/director, no big names attached...yeah, I can see where he'd get cold (hobbit) feet. His quote was more about how he didn't understand it, though. Who knows if that was just a line, but if he was telling the truth and didn't "get it", I'm wondering how he hadn't heard of Tolkien.
Still, one of the reasons I think the movie did work was that there weren't really a-listers attached. Wood and Astin were child-actors, nobody had heard of Boyd, Bloom, or Monaghan. Mortensen and Rhys-Davies were known, but not a-listers. They weren't "stars". McKellen was the biggest name, and even he was more known as a venerable Shakespearean performer - and less famous than others of that "classical actor" bag, like Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, John Hurt, or Ben Kingsley. Even the supporting roles didn't have any big-a-list swagger hiding in a cameo. Blanchett, Weaving, et al. were known, but not ubiquitous names.
Connery might have tipped that balance in a weird way. It might have been jarring to see larger-than-life Sir Sean Connery being Gandalf, especially without any other "names" in the cast.
well having Connery wouldve been a major coup alot bigger than any of those you mentioned (as you say McKellan wasnt that known then he was cast - he might not have even been Magneto then if he was cast in LOTR before Xmen) also it wouldve harkened back to the 80s Sword&Sorcery/Fantasy films that Connery had been in (Highlander, Time Bandits etc)
shareHe was in X-Men first. Apparently he told Jackson and Co. that he wouldn't be able to do LOTR due to X-Men re-shoots, but they really wanted him, so Bryan Singer promised he'd get McKellen freed up in time to work on the trilogy.
Love Time Bandits.