10 Times Actors Were Edited Out Of Movies
5. Michael K. Williams - Solo: A Star Wars Story
When Solo directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired from the project in mid-2017, the film they were originally intending to make was forced to undergo a ton of significant changes. Included in these changes was the removal of a character played by The Wire's Michael K. Williams, who was ultimately axed because of scheduling conflicts.
When Ron Howard boarded the movie as its new director, he still wanted to work with Williams, but major chunks of the film had to be reshot and reworked. So naturally, the length of the film's shooting schedule was increased significantly, which caused problems for Williams, who had other professional commitments to attend to: namely, he was filming something else in South Africa at the time.
So, Howard was forced to remove Williams' role from the film, a character described as a sophisticated "half mountain lion, half human" by the actor.
In the final cut, Paul Bettany plays a similar - but not identical - character, who essentially had the same story function that Williams' character would have done.