10 More Insane Reasons Actors Didn't Return For Sequels

How often has a successful movie been followed up with another effort that simply fell way short of expectations? When crafting a sequel, there are so many things to consider, and so many things that could go very wrong.

Something that can be a struggle is continuity, particularly surrounding the cast. Do the original characters return or are some sacrificed? Are the original actors able to reprise their roles, and if not, is the character dropped altogether, or are they recast? In a perfect world, everyone that helped make the previous efforts a success would be welcomed back, but this isn't a perfect world.

Changes have to be made all the time, and more often than not there are the same old mundane reasons of scheduling conflicts or creative differences. However, the land of Hollywood can always throw up a few surprises. There are stories that go beyond the typical excuses, and remind us just how insane the movie industry can be.

Actors have been completely ignored by the studio, gone on hate-filled rants about co-stars, or despised their roles so much that they wanted their character to be killed off. Others were simply left on the sideline because they aged. 

With the first three films in the rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy being centered around one ape - namely Andy Serkis' Caesar - the human element was left to come and go. No human characters played a part in more than one chapter of the story, but this almost wasn't the case.

James Franco portrayed Will in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and was directly responsible for kickstarting the entire Simian Flu pandemic. When Caesar revisited his old home in the sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, though, Will was nowhere to be seen.

There was a tiny cameo where the leader of the apes saw a video of himself and Will, but the yellow X that marked the house as contaminated suggested that Franco's character suffered the same fate as most humans in the story. There was a time, though, when the actor would have returned in some capacity.

Franco told CBM that there was a plan for him to return while Rise director Rupert Wyatt was still attached to direct the sequel. However, once Wyatt left the project and was replaced by Matt Reeves, Franco was essentially ghosted by the studio, with no one getting in touch with him at all.