12 Least Successful Recastings Of Iconic Film Characters

9. Julianne Moore - Clarice Starling

Film: Hannibal (2001) Replacing: Jodie Foster The Silence of the Lambs remains one of only three films to have secured the Big Five at the Oscars - Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Director and Best Picture (the others, if you're interested, are It Happened One Night and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest). Being such a big critical and commercial success, it was only a matter of time before Thomas Harris' other novels would be brought to the big screen. But whatever else was wrong with Hannibal - and there was quite a lot - the recasting of Clarice Starling was a big misjudgement. Even before Harris' novel was published in 1999, plans were already afoot to reunite the cast and crew of 'Lambs. But once director Jonathan Demme passed on the project, original Clarice actress Jodie Foster proved increasingly reluctant to be part of it. She turned down the part after reading Harris' novel, saying that she disapproved of how her character developed with regards to Lector. After a rewrite by Schinder's List screenwriter Steve Zaillian failed to change her mind, Anthony Hopkins suggested that director Ridley Scott cast Julianne Moore, with whom he had worked on Surviving Picasso. Like several of the people we've encountered on this list so far, Moore is a perfectly good actor - in fact, she's arguably one of the best of her generation. Taking place as it does ten years after the events of 'Lambs, the character is bound to have changed somewhat from the Clarice we knew and loved. But the change isn't welcome, with Moore seeming all the more awkward in the role as things get progressively sillier, even before the infamous scene of Hopkins eating Ray Liotta's brains. While Moore's career wasn't adversely affected by this appearance, it's still not the Clarice that either we or the film desperately needed.