10 Movie Roles You Didn't Know Were Recast On TV

2. Ferris Bueller - Ferris Bueller

From Dusk Till Dawn Santanico Pandemonium
Paramount Pictures/NBC

Another entry, another John Hughes movie being adapted for the small screen.

Much like Uncle Buck struck a chord with audiences at the time and since, Ferris Bueller's Day Off remains a favourite of many to this day. And much like Buck Russell is synonymous with John Candy, Ferris Bueller is synonymous with Matthew Broderick. As such, it was always going to be a stretch for audiences to take to anyone other than Broderick in the Bueller role.

Still, that didn't stop NBC from replacing Broderick for Charlie Schlatter in 1990.

Simply titled Ferris Bueller, this TV take on the titular character at least tried to address the elephant in the room. By that, it had Schlatter's Ferris take a chainsaw to a life-size cut-out of Matthew Broderick's Bueller in the show's first episode. As was explained in the series, the events of John Hughes' 1986 movie were actually based on the real Ferris Bueller, as portrayed by Charlie Schlatter.

Regardless of addressing why this Ferris looked different to the Ferris of the film, that didn't stop the show being cancelled midway through its first season.

As a fun slice of trivia, the role of Ferris' sister Jeanie - played by Dirty Dancing's Jennifer Grey in the movie - was played by a certain Jennifer Aniston in the TV series. Just four years after Ferris Bueller premiered, Aniston would famously appear as Rachel in Friends.

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