12 Movie Casting Decisions That Fans Couldn't Handle

4. Idris Elba - Heimdall (Thor)

Back when Idris Elba was cast as Asgardian sentry Heimdall in Thor, the MCU faced one of its first early casting controversies.

A white supremacist group, the Council Of Conservative Citizens, mounted a campaign to boycott the film on the grounds that a Norse God would never be black (given their European ancestry).

This sparked a general debate about race-blind casting in movies and the difference between whitewashing a character and - wait for it - "blackwashing" them.

Elba himself quite rightly laughed the controversy off, calling it "ridiculous" that anyone would whine about a cast member's race in a movie with so many wilfully ridiculous elements.

And thankfully, most sensible people agreed with him, even if that hasn't stopped a small quarter of definitely-not-racists complaining about it to this day.

Did It Work Out?: Absolutely. Nobody with a fully functioning brain stem cared that Heimdall was black, and though the part was relatively underwritten throughout his MCU run, Elba did a great job with what he had.