The Real Reason These Actors Were Cut From A Sequel

Where would Hollywood be without sequels? A galaxy far, far away wouldn't have become a cultural staple. We might have only gotten one offer we couldn't refuse. And John and Sarah Conner would never have faced a Judgment Day. Then again, we probably all could have done without "Caddyshack II" and lived perfectly happy cinephile lives. Nonetheless, when a film franchise decides on a subsequent installment, viewers generally expect to see many of the same faces that brought them to the theater the first time around. 

Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. Whether it's a conflict about money, personalities, or creative differences, there are plenty of instances in which actors from an original film aren't included in a sequel. Here are just a few examples of actors who didn't make the cut. Sometimes, it really isn't as good as the first time ... if the first time was ever that good at all.

It's one thing to miss out on a sequel that flops and inevitably goes nowhere. It's another thing to sit out a follow-up that opens the door to one of the largest, most ambitious franchises in movie history and eventually becomes a worldwide phenomenon. Alas, that is the premise of The Ballad of Terrence Howard. When Robert Downey, Jr. first put on his Iron Man suit in 2008, Howard was by his side as James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Tony Stark's close friend and future War Machine.

Yet two years later, when Stark was called on once again to save the world, Rhodey looked a lot less like Terrence Howard and a lot more like Don Cheadle. In the end, Cheadle would go on to play Rhodey/War Machine throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe, right up through the 2023 Disney+ series "Secret Invasion."

While Howard has a reputation for being difficult to work with, the actor said in interviews that his disappearance from the MCU had nothing to do with his attitude. Instead, he blamed his co-star, saying Downey "took the money that was supposed to go to me and pushed me out." Howard elaborated further on the "Sway in the Morning" radio show, explaining that instead of paying him the $8 million he was originally offered for "Iron Man 2," Marvel instead arranged to pay him just one million. Perhaps War Machines cost less than we've been led to believe.

Alec Baldwin already had a number of television and movie credits on his resume before signing on to star in "The Hunt for Red October" in 1990. But it was the role of Jack Ryan that helped propel him to a new level of stardom. With Tom Clancy writing so prolifically about the CIA analyst-turned-field agent, one would have thought that Baldwin was primed to reprise the role in any number of sequels.

But when "Patriot Games" premiered in 1992, it was Harrison Ford, not Alec Baldwin, in the role of Jack Ryan. Ford would play Ryan again two years later in "Clear and Present Danger" before ceding the role to Ben Affleck in "The Sum of All Fears." If Baldwin is to be believed, he was run off as a way for the movie studio to clear a debt.

In 2011, Baldwin wrote that the reason he never appeared in "Patriot Games" is that Paramount Studios owed money to "a very famous movie star" who had a deal on a previous movie fall apart. So in order to fulfill this financial obligation, Baldwin was pushed aside. While the "famous movie star" is never named, some have connected the dots to Harrison Ford. For his part, David Kirkpatrick (the executive Baldwin accused of engineering the move) chalked it up to "an issue of script approval."

Were it not for the intrepid reporting of April O'Neil, the world might have never learned of the existence of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — at least, if you believe comic book lore. But it might be a bit surprising to realize that three different actresses have taken on the role over the course of the franchise's live-action big screen life, most recently Megan Fox in 2014 and 2016.

The original April O'Neil was played by Judith Hoag in the 1990 debut. At the time, Hoag was a 22-year-old actor working alongside Robin Williams in "Cadillac Man" and looking for her big break. Despite not knowing what "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was about, she took the role and worked a dual schedule to finish both movies. When it came time to cast "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret of the Ooze," Hoag wasn't invited back. Her schedule likely had something to do with it ... but not in the way one might think.

Hoag complained to the producers about the long six-day shooting schedule, as well as the film's heavy violence: "I think they thought I was too demanding, and moved on." In her place, Paige Turco took over the role. Hoag was considered for the third film in the series, but producers thought it might be too confusing for young viewers. Definitely not radical, dude.

Long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe became the crown jewel of superhero films, there was the "X-Men" series. While this franchise of super-powered team-ups hasn't had quite the level of box office clout as the MCU in recent years, it still did have quite a bit of appeal. That appeal (at least for fans of the comic books) bubbled over when Olivia Munn was cast to play Psylocke in "X-Men: Apocalypse."

Plenty of fans expected that Munn would be back for the final installment of the 20th Century Fox X-series, although that likely had something to do with Munn herself proclaiming ahead of time that "Dark Phoenix" would be a "two-parter" and her character would definitely be making an appearance. The studio didn't take too kindly to the admission and sent a note to let her know as much.

Nonetheless, the slip of the tongue wasn't actually the reason Munn didn't return for "Dark Phoenix." Instead, the issue was much simpler: scheduling conflicts. When the X-Men saddled up for their final ride at Fox, Munn was busy filming "The Predator" and was unavailable. Doing both at the same time would have taken a superhuman effort.

When director Tim Burton brought "Batman" to the big screen in 1989, audiences flocked to theaters to see Michael Keaton's Dark Knight battle Jack Nicholson's Joker through the gritty streets of Gotham City. Veteran actor Billy Dee Williams appeared on-screen as Gotham district attorney Harvey Dent, giving fans reason to assume that he would become the villain Two-Face in Burton's subsequent films.

Unfortunately, that never happened ... at least not with Williams in the role. When Burton's "Batman Returns" arrived in 1992, Harvey Dent was nowhere to be found. Instead, Batman battled the Penguin (Danny DeVito), with Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) thrown into the mix. By 1995, Burton was no longer involved in the franchise and Joel Schumacher, who was tapped to direct "Batman Forever," decided to go a different direction, recruiting Tommy Lee Jones to don the makeup for Two-Face.

While Williams never got the chance to play the role in live-action, the story does have a fairly happy ending. In 2017's "The Lego Batman Movie," Williams was cast as the voice of Two-Face. All's well that ends well, perhaps.

Michael J. Fox may have been the star of "Back to the Future," but as George McFly, Crispin Glover gave a career-defining performance. That made it all the more surprising when Glover didn't return for either of the movie's two sequels.

For any moviegoers asking why the elder McFly was portrayed by a different actor in "Back to the Future Part II" and "Part III" (journeyman actor Jeffrey Weissman took on the role), the reason is likely because Glover himself was asking too many questions. According to Glover, he had a problem with the ending of the original film, saying it sent the message that "money equals happiness," a contention that supposedly angered director Robert Zemeckis.

Nevertheless, Glover claims he still was interested in being in the sequels, but the paycheck was much less than what he considered to be fair. Apparently, playing George McFly was not going to be his destiny.

Mel Gibson's big break in the film industry was his star-making role as Max Rockatansky in George Miller's 1979 cult classic "Mad Max." The film was a success, and the sequel, "The Road Warrior," became an international sensation that spawned a wave of copycats and imitators. Gibson reprised his lead role for that film and "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome," but was ousted and replaced by Tom Hardy when it came time decades later to make the follow-up, "Mad Max: Fury Road."

At one point, Gibson was set to play Max again in "Fury Road" but, many years and many scandals later, the plans for the film changed drastically. Miller first had the idea for "Fury Road" around the turn of the century and nearly went into production in 2001 with Gibson in the lead role until 9/11 happened and torpedoed the film's chances of getting made. 

Over a decade would pass before Miller got back around to making "Fury Road." By the time he was ready to re-mount the production, Gibson had both aged out of the role and had gone through all of the personal scandals that had ravaged his viability as a leading man. Gibson and Miller had a mutual understanding about the replacement and there was no bad blood between them. Gibson even attended the premiere of "Fury Road" and posed for photos with Miller and Hardy.

Released in 2021, "The Matrix Resurrections" was the long-delayed fourth entry in the "Matrix" series, which had previously concluded with "The Matrix Revolutions" back in 2003. In the nearly two decades between the third and fourth movies, the core cast of the franchise changed significantly, but the reasons behind those changes are perhaps a bit questionable. Stars like Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss returned, but other prominent characters were recast, including the major roles of Agent Smith, originally played by Hugo Weaving, and Morpheus, portrayed by Laurence Fishburne in the original trilogy.

Weaving was initially supposed to reprise the Agent Smith role, but ended up getting replaced by Jonathan Groff. The official reason for Weaving's absence was scheduling conflicts owing to his commitments to the National Theater. Weaving was willing to do both projects as long as his scenes could be shot a bit later. That nearly ended up happening, but director Lana Wachowski was unwilling to accommodate Weaving's busy schedule and opted to recast his role instead.

Weaving had been open about having some issues with the screenplay for "The Matrix Resurrections" and concerns that the movie might not have been getting made for the right reasons, which may have factored into the decision to replace him. Fishburne, on the other hand, wasn't invited to reprise the Morpheus role for reasons that were never made clear to him, with the role instead being recast with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.

"Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" is both a prequel and sequel to the original "Sin City," released nine years prior. This belated follow-up to the original anthology features a new cast of characters alongside many familiar faces. Two characters who returned but were now played by different actors were the brutish Manute and the suave Dwight.

Recasting Manute with Dennis Haysbert was an unfortunate necessity after the sad passing of original actor Michael Clarke Duncan. The recasting of Dwight, however, was a bit more of a head-scratcher. Originally played by Clive Owen, the role was instead taken over by Josh Brolin, with his change in appearance justified by the character undergoing facial reconstruction surgery to look completely different. But the problem is that Dwight receives the surgery partway through "A Dame to Kill For," with Brolin donning distracting prosthetics to make him look more like Owen.

It seems like the perfect setup to have Owen finish the last stretch of the movie, and that was actually the original plan, but director Robert Rodriguez liked what Brolin did with the character and decided to use Brolin for the whole film. It certainly helped that it was cheaper and easier to just use one actor instead of two. Shortly ahead of shooting, Owen said he had never been asked about reprising his role as Dwight. He told IndieWire, "We never really talked about it."

Just as Harrison Ford had taken over the Jack Ryan role from Alec Baldwin after "The Hunt for Red October," Ben Affleck eventually took the role over from Ford for "The Sum of All Fears." The role has since become something like James Bond, where changing actors every so often is expected. The character was subsequently played by Chris Pine in "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" and John Krasinski in the "Jack Ryan" Amazon Prime series. The latter has helmed the character for the longest, with four seasons of television under his belt, though his time in the role is also now drawing to a close.

Ford played Jack Ryan in two movies based on Tom Clancy books, "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger." At one point, Ford was signed to star as Jack Ryan again in "The Sum of All Fears," but Ford had issues with the script and, when he tried to work them out with director Phillip Noyce, they got nowhere. Ford broke off his commitment to the film, and Affleck stepped in to replace him, presumably having no problem shooting the script as it was.

Evan Peters played the supporting role of Todd, one of the high school buddies of the titular super hero, in the first "Kick-Ass." When it came time to make the sequel three years later, Peters was no longer involved. Todd was still a part of the plot, and in fact the character had even more to do the second time around, but the role was recast with Augustus Prew, who was best known for his role on "The Borgias."

"Kick-Ass 2" had a litany of other eyebrow-raising concerns outside of Peters' recasting, so the actor swap flew further under the radar than it probably would have otherwise. The movie was met with a far harsher reception across the board than the well-liked original, and the situation wasn't aided by the fact that Jim Carrey, who played one of the lead roles in the sequel, went around denouncing the movie publicly ahead of its release. Peters' absence from the sequel was chalked up to scheduling conflicts with the second season of "American Horror Story."

Strangely, Peters has juggled another role in a superhero property. He played Pietro Maximoff, aka Quicksilver, in 2014's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" and 2016's "X-Men: Apocalypse," while Aaron Taylor-Johnson also portrayed the character in the 2015 MCU entry "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Peters reprised the role — sort of — when he popped up again as a version of Pietro in 2021's "WandaVision."

"The Silence of the Lambs" is one of the most highly-acclaimed horror films ever made. A rarity for such dark material, the film took home five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Jonathan Demme also won the Best Director Oscar, and Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins both won Oscars for their performances. However, when it came time to adapt the next book in Thomas Harris's series, Hopkins was the only one who returned.

Clarice Starling remained the main protagonist of "Hannibal" opposite the titular Hannibal Lecter, but she was now played by Julianne Moore instead of Foster. Taking over for Demme in the director's chair was Ridley Scott. Ted Tally, who won an Oscar for writing the adapted screenplay of "The Silence of the Lambs," was also replaced. The reason why so much of the core creative team chose not to return for the sequel largely came down to the source material, with Harris's follow-up novel being of a drastically different caliber than his "Red Dragon" and "The Silence of the Lambs" books. 

At the time, Foster chalked up her refusal to simple scheduling conflicts, but she later revealed that she felt the plot of "Hannibal" disrespected the Clarice character. She told Total Film, "The official reason I didn't do 'Hannibal' is I was doing another movie... but Clarice meant so much to Jonathan [Demme] and I, she really did, and I know it sounds kind of strange to say but there was no way that either of us could really trample on her."

Tom Hiddleston is a key part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Loki. He first began playing the role in 2011's "Thor" and has stuck with the character throughout seven MCU movies and two TV shows. That's a pretty hefty collection of movies, but the total was actually supposed to be eight movies.

In 2015's "Avengers: Age of Ultron," Loki originally popped up for a brief appearance, but was left on the cutting room floor. The character showed up in a Thor dream sequence but never arrived in the flesh. The reason for cutting Hiddleston only became apparent after a cut of "Age of Ultron" was fully assembled with Hiddleston's appearance intact and shown to test audiences. His cameo caused confusion among the initial test audiences who made the wrong logical leaps about Loki's involvement in the plot, with some erroneously taking his scene to be a reveal that Loki was controlling Ultron all along. In response, Loki was cut out of the movie altogether to avoid the confusion.