Almost castings for iconic roles that would've been radically different

[K7P5V]

If animation counts, my next choice would be Tim Curry being replaced by Mark Hamill as The Joker (BTAS):

[Icefan]

14 year old Jodie Foster turning down the role of Princess Leia, because she had already committed to doing Freaky Friday.

[caj]

Buddy Ebsen (The Beverly hillbillies) stepping away from the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz due to an allergy to the make up.

Ebsen would have been a completely different Tin Man than Jack Haley IMO.

[ChrisIII]

Frank Sinatra was sort of offered the lead (due to his DETECTIVE contract) in DIE HARD-basically because DIE HARD was actually partly based on a novel NOTHING LASTS FOREVER featuring the same detective Sinatra had played in THE DETECTIVE.


Funny thing is Lloyd Bochner was in THE DETECTIVE, and his son Hart played Ellis. Jacqueline Bissett was also in DETECTIVE and dated Alexander Gudonov who played Karl in the 80s.

[Gaastra]

Yup but frank got royalties from all die hard movies as he had a contract to make money from all sequels to the detective even if he wasn't in them! He wasn't the boss for nothing! And yes, most people forget die hard is a sequel!

Also die hard was turned into commando 2 after with the wife now arnolds daughter he has to save! So close to filming but arnold had another film to shoot and could not made it when they wanted, and they went back to the detective 2 and later got bruce!

Two what ifs!

Less insane than the cyborg, masters of the universe 2, spider-man canon pictures mess!

Bio-dome was a bill and ted 3 script and dude where's my car was a live action Bevis and butt=head with mike Myers!

Speed and under siege were both rejected die hard scripts!

Chappie was a short circuit reboot!

Jem and the holograms was a old movie called famous that had nothing to do with jem!

Speaking of he-man the live action movie had plot points from an unmade dc comics new gods pitch!

Dr morbid was dr strange till they lost the rights a week before filming started and just changed the names but it's still clearly dr strange! It even has a marvel multiverse number as a dr strange alt universe in marvel ironic!

[skyvolt2000]

Marlon Wayans being cast as Robin in Batman Returns.

Would've been interesting to see his take on the character.

According to Marlon he was paid for two movies and there is a Robin costume of his somewhere.

Star Trek TNG

Tim Russ was almost Laforge before Levar Burton.

Star Trek Voyager

Linda Hamilton as Janeway was considered. Along with the actress who played Dr Brahms on Star Trek TNG before they settled on their first choice. She only lasted one day and left. Mulgrew had to come back to try again.

Torres's costume would have had her wearing Klingon teeth.

Tuvok was suppose to be older than he looked.

And here are a few that would look WAY different had tv pilots or other shows were not axed.

ABC not axed its three shows (that actually had good ratings these shows either would not happen or had different castings)

Thea-
Cleavant Derricks was on that show as a lead. It got axed and he moved to Sliders.
The late Yvette Wilson and Brandy-no Moesha had Thea made season 2.

Me and the Boys (Steve Harvey's first series)
No Steve Harvey Show
No Chaz Lamar Shepard for 7th Heaven

Phenom
No Jennifer Lien for Kes on Voyager.

A MAYBE All American Girl
No Garrett Wong for Lt Kim on Voyager

Journey to the Center of Earth pilot
No Tim Russ for Tuvok

Yet another maybe Going to Extremes (TV series)t a drama on ABC has it made season 2.
No Robert Duncan McNeil

Under One Roof on CBS had it made season 2
No Merlin Santana for Steve Harvey Show

Nick Freno Licensed Teacher
Had the WB not FIRED all the kids and some of the cast
Journey of Allen Strange on Nickelodeon would look different without Arjay Smith-who got the role a month after being fired from Freno.
TJ on Recess would have had a different voice actor. Ross Malinger was on Freno too.
No Portia de Rossi for Ally McBeal.
No Cara DeLizia for So Weird
Reggie Hayes was in the pilot and was replaced.

On his other show Girlfriends-the roles of Lynn and Toni were played by different actresses. Christina Cox (Lynn) and Leslie Silva (Toni) before being replaced by Persia White and Jill Marie Jones. Of note Persia White's previous show just got axed when she got the Girlfriends role. Jill Marie Jones-her actual first acting gig aired AFTER this series started.
Darnell was first played by Flex Alexander who left after he got his own show.
It's spinoff The Game recasted the two leads after the back door pilot.

[skyvolt2000]

Some more....

Disney's Talespin
Depending on the episode you had two voices for Kit Cloudkicker. Because RJ Williams was doing another Disney show at the time and some of the voice actors had issues with the other guy mainly the original voice of Louie.

Family Guy
Cree Summer was in the running to voice Meg.
She was also the voice of Penny on Inspector Gadget.

What About Andy when the show move production to Canada all the American voices were fired and the series redubbed season one.
Bumper Robinson voiced Danny in season one. He got replaced by the guy who does Buster's voice on Arthur.

Disney Gummi Bears
Calvin's voice kept changing actors including the guy who would become Bud Bundy. Interesting enough David Faustino and Christina Applegate replaced the original Bud and Kelly at the request of Ed O'Neil.

Step By Step

Jarrett Lemon was Mark on the show NOT the Christopher Castile. In fact much like in the opening credits of Family Matters where you see the FIRST Judy-you can see Jarrett in the credits as Mark.
Brandon Call had to leave Baywatch for this show.

Clueless
Rachel Blanchard who was on a streak of doing 4 straight tv series (War of the Worlds, Are you Afraid of the Dark, Chris Cross and Flash Forward) had to leave Flash Forward to do Clueless tv series. As there was a gap between filming the first 4 episodes and the rest of season 1.

Different Strokes
YES we almost had a casting for the Gooch. The actor who was going to play him works in my school district. He also did the Bad News Bears go to Japan.

Boy Meets World
Lee Norris was almost not available as he was on another show as a lead.

All My Children
Michael B Jordan REPLACED Chadwick Boseman as Reggie. In fact footage of Boseman as Reggie is rather RARE to see.

Family Matters
Does this show make it past season 1 without Jaleel White? Who depending on if Disney had NOT retooled the show he was suppose to be a lead on Good Morning Miss Bliss (Saved by the Bell). Then again if his OTHER series Charlie and Company had made beyond season 1 lets say to a season 4-he wouldn't have been available.

In fact his co-star would not have been available for HIS iconic role as Neil Winters on Young and The Restless- Kristoff St. John.

[Gaastra]

Munsters counting the two 60s movies went through four marlynes.

[caj]

The Golden Girls - Elaine Stritch was very close to playing Dorothy after Bea Arthur turned it down. Stritch bombed her audition and luckily Arthur changed her mind.

[williamtheday]

Fred MacMurray and Jack Oakie were were originally cast for Road To Singapore.

[achilles]

Harvey Keitel in the Martin Sheen role in Apocalypse Now. He filmed some scenes, and then Coppola decided he wasn't working.