2. Eli Roth Re-Casting
Tarantino rarely makes casting mistakes in his films, though he dropped a huge clanger with Inglourious Basterds when he cast his friend and somewhat protage
Eli Roth for a major role in the movie, that of 'The Bear Jew', Sgt. Donny Donowitz. Because of the ridiculously short timeframe he gave himself to get a completed movie in competition at the Cannes film festival, he only had a few weeks to find the right person to play the character, a role he had probably envisioned
Michael Madsen to play when he was writing the screenplay intially in the 90's, but by the time he got around to finishing it, he was too old for the part. In the final few years of writing, Tarantino had wanted
Adam Sandler, in the usual Tarantino trick of casting against type, to play The Bear Jew but he was busy making Funny People. So under this pressure, Tarantino gave in and against his better judgement, trusted that his friend could pull it off. Unfortunately, Eli Roth is only slightly a better actor than Tarantino himself and all the moments he appears in the movie fail to live up to how well the character reads on paper. After a huge build up and introduction to his character... perhaps the biggest character build-up outside of a whole movie building up to David Carradine's appearance as Bill, out comes the director of Hostel. To say the air was suck out of the first screening I attended for the movie was an understatement. Casting his friend clouded his better judgement and it's not a mistake he would have made back in the 90's.