10 Actors Who Were REJECTED For Recent Movies (And Why)

The Role: Tom Lopez, the new husband of protagonist Brian Harper's (Patrick Wilson) ex-wife Brenda (Carolina Bartczak), as was ultimately played by Michael Peña.

Why He Was Rejected: To simply pawn this off as "scheduling conflicts" is to rather undersell the situation and the utter havoc that the pandemic has wreaked on film productions over the last two years.

Mere weeks before Roland Emmerich's new sci-fi disaster movie was set to start filming, Stanley Tucci was added to the cast, though when he was called upon to shoot his supporting role a few months later, the actor was physically unable to reach the Montreal set.

Tucci, who resides in London, couldn't catch a flight to Canada due to pandemic-related travel restrictions between the countries.

And so with the production already spending an extra $5.6 million to speed shooting up, the decision was made to cut Tucci loose rather than wait for him and incur further costs.

For a relatively small supporting role it absolutely makes sense from a business standpoint. And so, Peña was quickly drafted in to fill the casting gap.