10 Casting Choices That Will Make Or Break Upcoming Movies
These movies will live or die by these performances.
No matter how well written or skillfully directed a movie might be, nothing can hurt or heal a film quite like casting.
If the time has been taken to find the perfect person for a pivotal lead role, they can anchor the entire project, but get it wrong and they can doom even the most promising of ventures.
As such, major movie roles will typically put out extensive casting calls and put actors through a prolonged auditioning process, to ensure the filmmakers have secured the right performer for the gig.
All the same, they don't always get it right, and in the case of these 10 upcoming films, there are some understandable doubts.
These 10 bold and often unexpected casting decisions are either going to ensure these movies fall flat on their faces or soar beyond any and all expectations - there's not really any middle-ground here.
From superhero casting picks which can't help but seem a bit lazy, to hiring actors who appear totally ill-suited to playing iconic pop-culture characters, the success or failure of these performances is what will, above all else, determine each movie's overall fate. Fingers crossed...
10. Pedro Pascal - Reed Richards (The Fantastic Four)
After many months of scuttlebutt, it was recently finally confirmed that Pedro Pascal will be playing Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic in next year's Marvel Cinematic Universe movie The Fantastic Four.
And even with the film rumoured to be centered around Vanessa Kirby's Sue Storm, Marvel knows that it's Pedro Pascal - an actor who seems to be just about everywhere right now - who is going to put the most butts in seats.
And yet, Pascal's casting has been met with a relatively mixed response from fans, some feeling that taking an actor already playing two of the most prominent roles in pop-culture at present - The Mandalorian and Joel from The Last of Us - and giving him Mister Fantastic is a bit too obvious, even cynical.
Pascal is a terrific actor, no question, though that doesn't necessarily mean he's a snug fit for Reed.
It'll ultimately come down to how well he gels with co-stars Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and how the writing and direction handle his character.
If he knocks it out of the park, then perhaps the MCU has found its new Robert Downey Jr.-esque charmer to lead the franchise's future, but if not there's going to many questioning why Marvel didn't spring for a bolder and more interesting casting choice.