9 Films That Changed Due To Fan Backlash

The 2019 reboot of Hellboy was actually shaping up to be something pretty special, with a fantastic leading actor in David Harbour, an interesting director choice in The Descent's Neil Marshall, and an R-rating allowing the filmmakers to substantially differentiate the project from the previous PG-13 Hellboy flicks. Ultimately though, it ended up being an overlong mess.

This can be attributed to the fact that, by all accounts, the production of the movie was a full-blown disaster, and things didn't start out so great in the casting department either, when one particular choice of actor spawned a widespread fan backlash that quickly led to the role being recast.

Ed Skrein joined the film as Major Ben Daimio in summer 2017, a character who is of Asian heritage in the comics. Naturally, the casting of the white, English Skrein did not sit well with fans of the source material, and the uproar started almost as soon as the news broke.

Skrein was moved by this reaction, and literally a week later, he backed out of the project, stating that representation is important and that he did not want to get in the way of an actor with the right ethnicity playing the role.

The part eventually went to Daniel Dae Kim, but seeing how badly the movie turned out, you have to imagine that Skrein is immensely relieved that he chose to step down as early as he did.