12 Least Successful Recastings Of Iconic Film Characters

3. Michael Gambon - Albus Dumbledore

Films: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) Replacing: Richard Harris As we have seen, recasting after an actor has died is not an easy task. It becomes even harder when the character they play is part of a franchise which, box office permitting, is locked in for at least seven films. Prisoner of Azkaban is widely regarded as a step up for the Harry Potter series, with the pedestrian Chris Columbus vacating the director's chair for the brilliant Alfonso Cuaron. But for all the plaudits the subsequent films have garnered, many fans still have a problem with Albus Dumbledore Mark II. Richard Harris had been initially reluctact to play Dumbledore, only taking the role when his 11-year-old granddaughter threatened that she would never speak to him again if he turned it down. He succumbed to Hodgkin's disease in 2002, two-and-a-half weeks before the American premiere of Chamber of Secrets. Harris' family lobbied for his great friend and fellow actor Peter O'Toole to take the role, but Warner Bros. felt that O'Toole was an insurance liability based upon his own advanced age. Ian McKellen was (falsely) rumoured to be interested before Michael Gambon accepted the role. Ironically, Gambon had previously replaced Harris in another role, taking over the mantle of Maigret on TV back in the 1990s. Gambon is a very accomplished actor, and a great many Potter fans feel that he did a great job in a difficult role. But increasingly Gambon began to depart from the way that Dumbledore is depicted in the books, making him more active and cantankerous in contrast to Harris' sweet and caring approach. Gambon was even quoted at a Q&A for Order of the Phoenix as saying: "I don€™t have to play anyone really. I just stick on a beard and play me, so it€™s no great feat... I just say what the script tells me to say." We can debate how well Harris would have handled the darker material in the later books had he lived, but aspects of Gambon's performance remain frustatingly lazy.