10 Movie Roles Obviously Designed For Other Actors

Ridley Scott's long-awaited return to the Alien franchise began life purely as backstory to his original film. However, when wunderkind screenwriter Damon Lindelof was tasked to rewrite Jon Spaiht's initial script, the project became a parallel story instead, set in the same universe but no longer reading as a straight prequel.

Part of that story involved a traditional Alien franchise plot point: the duplicity of the Weyland Corporation, the financiers of several of the gruesomely aborted missions in the Alien franchise. In this case, it depicted Peter Weyland, the corporation's founder, a man of advancing years seeking to use his vast fortune to stave off death.

Originally, Scott had legendary actor Max von Sydow in mind to play Weyland - he was 86 at the time, age-appropriate for the role, but still a formidable presence in front of the camera.

However, a subsequent draft of the script called for a younger version of Weyland to appear. Weighing up the alternatives, it was decided to go with the equally formidable but considerably younger Guy Pearce, who could appear au naturel in the flashback part of the story and then be aged up with make-up for his two other appearances in the film.

Pearce was cast, and production proceeded… and then a further draft of the script cut the flashback sequence entirely, leaving Scott with the prospect of Pearce playing twice his own age for no good reason. With an actor of Pearce' calibre, even this could have worked in Scott's favour... but the old-age prosthetics his team used made the man look like a mummy.

Should have stuck with Max.