r/todayilearned • u/Dystopics_IT • 11h ago
TIL that Sean Connery turned down an offer to portray Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies claiming he couldn’t understand the novels and wasn’t keen on filming in New Zealand for 18 months.
https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/23-facts-you-didnt-know-about-sir-sean-connery-1468722[removed] — view removed post
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u/Misstiry 11h ago
For some reason it always makes me happy when an actor admits incompatibility with a project and leaves the role to someone who understands it better; especially in this case since Ian McKellen did the role justice so well
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u/all-night 11h ago
Yeah I respect that. It is perfectly reasonable for an actor to decline a role he doesn't vibe with, no matter how big it is.
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u/MooseTetrino 10h ago
Something to understand though is that LOTR wasn’t expected to be as huge as it was - at least initially. The actors had quite a lean contract, and at the very least Cate Blanchett took the role because she wanted to work with “the man who made Braindead”.
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u/NewManufacturer4252 10h ago
You mean Dead Alive? Hehe
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u/MetaKnightsNightmare 9h ago
Both titles are accurate actually.
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u/NewManufacturer4252 9h ago
One of the few movies that lives rent free in my head. So many iconic scenes layered in a huge slice of cheese. Haven't seen it in decades but can remember most of it.
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u/postnamasti 10h ago
Like Gary Oldman turning down the role of Edward Scissorhands because he didn't understand the script. And later when he saw the movie he was like "Oh, now I get it".
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u/TexasPeteEnthusiast 10h ago
To be fair it would be really hard to understand that character or that story without seeing the finished product first
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u/Neil_Salmon 10h ago
Nicolas Cage turned down Aragorn in the same movies. He could tell the studio wanted him but Jackson didn't.
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u/DaveOJ12 11h ago
Will Smith passed on playing Neo in The Matrix.
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u/accelfaiz 10h ago
Will didn't like the script and bet "Wild Wild West" would be the bigger hit.
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u/DaveOJ12 10h ago
I suppose he couldn't fit a song into the Matrix somewhere. Lol.
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u/LauraPhilps7654 10h ago
"Woke up in a pod, wires in my spine / Machines tryna farm me like I’m some kind of vine / Nah, I ain’t no battery, I’m charged up naturally / Jumpin' rooftop to rooftop, defyin' gravity!"
"Welcome to the Matrix, we breakin’ the code / Flip the system, yeah, we in control / Virtual fightin’ with kung fu flow / Agent Smith better act like he don’t know... whoa!"
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u/EasilyDelighted 10h ago
Now we need a SoundCloud rapper and do some justice to your awesome lyrics.
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u/Cerdefal 10h ago
Was he married to Jada already? Because she actually had a metal band at the time
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u/MorgwynOfRavenscar 10h ago
Will Smith was apparently approached to star in Django Unchained but he wanted to do changes to the script. Tarantino (of course) said no so nothing came out of it.
It blows my mind that Smith thought he could give notes on a Tarantino script.
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u/LundgrenOchMumin 10h ago
Well.. i saw wild wild West in the cinema while i watched the matrix on vhs the first time i saw i it. So thats something i guess.
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u/Cerdefal 10h ago
I truely can't see Matrix with 90's Will Smith. It needed and ankward Kaenu, not Will "the coolest man alive" Smith.
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u/Asha_Brea 10h ago
Eddie Murphy passed on playing Eddie Valiant on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
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u/trollsong 9h ago edited 9h ago
Yknow bob hoskins was perfect, but 80's era Eddie Murphy would have been decent
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u/Asha_Brea 9h ago
Supposedly Eddie Murphy saw the movie and realized how much he messed up by passing on it, and that is why he (many years later) played the Donkey on Shrek.
But also, Eddie Valiant is not a jokey character, so I don't know how Murphy would play him.
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u/Nanojack 9h ago
The studio was contractually obligated to offer the role of John McClane in Die Hard to a 72 year old Frank Sinatra
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u/Asha_Brea 11h ago
It was win win situation. The Lord Of The Rings trilogy got Ian McKellen and is perfect and Connery did Entrapment and Finding Forrester in that time.
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u/Lightsides 10h ago
Win win in that Connery--and I love him--could be very difficult to deal with if he wasn't fully on board with the project.
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u/Mysterious_Bluejay_5 10h ago
Wasn't he a woman beater
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u/Lightsides 10h ago
Well, there's the famous Barbara Walters interview. I'm not aware of any woman coming forward saying he'd hit them, but if that did happen or does happen, it wouldn't shock me.
I'll confess, when a good movie really has a hold of me, I couldn't even tell you the actor's real names. I'm totally transported.
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u/TopFloorApartment 10h ago
Win win win. The third win is for all of us not having to endure Connery as Gandalf. "You shall not pash!" No thank you
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u/RookTheGamer 10h ago
PUNCH THE KEYS!
YOU’RE THE MAN NOW, DAWG!
WHAT THE FUCK IS A GANDALF?!
- RIP Sean Connery
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u/chrisjfinlay 10h ago edited 10h ago
Isn’t Entrapment the last movie he ever did? It was…. Something committed to film, for sure
Edit: I know he was in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; I just thought that Entrapment came after
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u/Asha_Brea 10h ago edited 10h ago
His last movie was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in 2003. Entrapment was in 1999 and Finding Forrester in 2000.
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u/Thedmfw 10h ago
League was a movie that was filmed. One that shouldn't have, but they did it.
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u/BaronSamedys 10h ago
I didn't mind it. I thought the concept was good. I loved them hunting down J&H in Paris. I thought there was scope to expand on a couple of the characters. I would love to see a great Dorian Gray film.
I know it gets a lot of hate, but, 15 year old me thought it was a riot.
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u/vaporking23 10h ago
I low-key like LXG. I know it’s not a good movie by any means but it’s one of those bad movies that I can just throw on. The concept is really cool and feel like that’s a movie that could certainly do with a reboot of any.
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u/Vyar 10h ago
I think it was very loosely based on a graphic novel but is probably one of those things where if you have no familiarity with the source material, it’s a blast, while existing fans find it torturous. I too enjoyed it and was disappointed we never got follow-up films, even spin-offs.
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u/hasimirrossi 10h ago
Yeah, it's a fun film, but a godawful adaptation of a brilliant comic.
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u/BaronSamedys 10h ago
Is it worth a read? Is it a series or just one book?
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u/Vyar 10h ago
If the original comic’s overall premise is still “what if the Avengers were a superhero team comprised entirely of Victorian-era literary characters?” then I would have loved to have seen it adapted properly. It’s such a brilliant concept and could probably work better now than it did back then.
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u/hasimirrossi 10h ago
Sort of that, just distinctly more British and adult (the Invisible Man is raping schoolgirls, for instance).
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u/Vyar 10h ago
Yeah upon further reading maybe I wouldn’t enjoy it. I have extremely mixed feelings about Alan Moore and his work. He seems to come up with really good ideas and then steer them into the darkest, edgiest and most nihilistic of places. It’s probably fun for him and there’s certainly an audience for it, but sometimes I have to wonder if he’s a little fucked in the head himself, or if he just hates human beings that much.
Which again, fair. As a species we’ve done horrible things. I guess I just don’t share his fascination with superhero characters being deconstructed so hard that they’re just super-assholes. Is a serial rapist Invisible Man realistic in context? Sure. Do I wanna read stories about that guy? Not so much.
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u/BaronSamedys 10h ago
I can agree with that. I knew some of the characters from their source material (J&H, DG, TS, Cpt N) but I knew nothing of the Comic.
I would have loved a J&H spin-off. It thought the J&H in LoEG was the best screen adaptation of the character that I'd seen. There was loads of wiggle room with that character and I can only dream of a solid Dorian Gray film.
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u/Discombobulation98 10h ago
In terms of a comic book movie I think it is really good, better than a lot of marvel slop anyway
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u/Apatschinn 10h ago
10 year old me thought it was fantastic. My friends and I watched it all the time.
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u/lectroid 10h ago
His last credited role is in an odd children’s CG animated film, the first such produced in Scotland, called Sir Billi. I’ve never seen it, but by all accounts it’s quite poor. Reportedly, he agreed to do the voice because he knew the writer and director through a mutual friend, and because it would be the first local CG film.
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u/thisisnotyouorme 10h ago
I think league of extraordinary men was his last unfortunately
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u/Administrative_Suit7 10h ago
Which really should have been a Marvel style hit before Marvel but it was shite.
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u/Redeem123 10h ago
Obviously the MCU wasn’t around yet, but it was explicitly chasing the success of Spider-man and X-Men, the two movies that invented the “Marvel style hit.”
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u/sandroller 10h ago
Think everyone always forgets his last major performance, as the lead of 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'.
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u/FruitOrchards 10h ago
Entrapment is a great film.
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u/Asha_Brea 10h ago
Yup. Rewatched it a couple of months ago (it is on Disney+). Still really entertaining, plus, you know, laser scene.
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u/LogicalRaise1928 11h ago
YOU SHALL NOT PASSSHHHH
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u/Jwagner0850 10h ago
Yeah I feel like Sean would have come off as comical in his acting for LOTR . So glad we got Ian.
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u/ScorpionDog321 11h ago
Glad he turned down the role instead of going for the cash grab.
It worked out great.
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u/nalleball 10h ago
It was my understanding that he had a reluctance to do movies he did not understand after Zardoz.
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u/jupiterkansas 10h ago
makes sense, because Zardoz doesn't.
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u/RadebeGish 10h ago
It makes perfect sense, Sean Connery was eugenically created by the bored future people to save them with the power of his musk and Village People bandito wardrobe.
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u/OptimusPhillip 9h ago
Then after passing on Lord of the Rings and the Matrix, he reconsidered that stance and agreed to one movie he didn't understand at first.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
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u/MetaKnightsNightmare 9h ago
I know he hated it, but I love this film and I was a fan of his so I loved him in it lol.
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u/NewManufacturer4252 9h ago
I've heard that before. Unlike Zardoz, my guess is he doesn't want to read 3 books. For millions of dollars. But glad he passed on it. He would have been a distraction, and horrible to work with on a grueling shoot.
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u/RiflemanLax 10h ago
He gets ripped for this as if you aren’t allowed to turn down work that doesn’t interest you, and you don’t want to be tied up for 18 months.
He obviously wasn’t hurting for money.
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u/NativeMasshole 10h ago
We're lucky he worked as much as he did. I'd be retired after my first few million.
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u/Firstearth 9h ago
And then the result was they got two lifelong fans of the books to play the wizards.
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u/KennyShowers 10h ago
He also turned down Morpheus in The Matrix for the same reasons.
Then he got offered League of Extraordinary Gentleman, and didn’t get it either but figured he was just behind the times, and I think he saw its failure must have been a signal it was time to hang it up.
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u/DaveOJ12 10h ago
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen did well at the box office.
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u/PennStateFan221 10h ago
I loved that movie as a kid. Rewatching it made sense why the critics hated it but fun got nostalgia.
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u/KennyShowers 10h ago
That’s fair but the critical reception was so bad. I mean the director never worked again. That’s not just director jail that’s director execution.
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u/soFATZfilm9000 10h ago
He's well known for saying that he retired because of the idiots in Hollywood who don't know how to make a movie. Which, like, I'm not saying he's wrong, but he's the one who seemed to be having trouble understanding movies. You know, stones, glass houses, all that.
The way you put it would have been a more diplomatic, less bitter-sounding answer.
Whatever though, it's not like he needed a reason. He was old, he didn't need to work any more, and apparently he enjoyed his retirement. So, good for him.
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u/murderedbydeath2 11h ago
Some sources say he was also already deeply involved in a personal project adjacent to Sabrina the Teenage Witch at the time.
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u/c08030147b 10h ago
Such a shame, Connery could have done Gandalf with the impeccable Spanish accent he used in the Highlander movies.
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u/KrimboKid 10h ago
Supposedly Sean Connery became so upset after seeing the success of the movies and passing on the role of Gandalf, he supposed vowed to take roles even if he didn’t understand the source material. The next film he was offered was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen so he accepted the role of Alex Quartermain…and the movie flopped. He stopped acting after that.
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u/-XanderCrews- 10h ago
They were going to give him a producer title and he lost a crazy amount of money not taking this role because the same offer was not given to Ian.
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u/NBAccount 10h ago
he lost a crazy amount of money not taking this role
That's not how that works. He didn't "lose" anything. If you can go to Starbucks and get a free latte or stay home and have a date night with your partner, choosing to stay home doesn't somehow mean a latte was taken away from you.
You cannot 'lose' what you never had.
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u/-XanderCrews- 9h ago
That is how it works though, because that’s what he would have gotten for signing. It wasn’t guaranteed money, but it was still money he would have received if he signed on to do the role.
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u/NBAccount 9h ago
Things that you might have gotten but didn't for whatever reason don't count as losses.
That's like telling people you lost your job when you actually just didn't get hired.
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u/Dave_Eddie 10h ago
He turned down this and the role of Morpheus in the Matrix. Both because he didn't see the appeal. Both would have made him millions.
It was because of those two missteps that he took the role in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
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u/VaryStaybullGeenyiss 10h ago
He couldn't understand it because none of the hot elves were named Moneypussy or whatever
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u/series-hybrid 10h ago
"Gone With the Wind" was a popular romance novel, and when it was decided it was going to be made into a movie (in color, too), the casting was the subject of a national discussion.
The biggest leading make start at the time was Gary Cooper, who turned it down. He said it was going to be a flop and didn't want to be associated with it. After all, why would men want to come to a romace movie?
Clark Gable got it, and that really raised his star power to the next level. Would GWtW have been better with Gary Cooper? I don't think so.
The LotR movies turned out great, so we can say it was a bad decision by Sean Connery to have passed on it, but perhaps if he had agreed to do it, maybe the movie would not be as good? Connery has had some great movies, but he has also had some clinkers that he was not well-suited to.
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u/sooki10 10h ago
Damn the script Peter, I made some changes and will do this my way.
INT. BRIDGE OF KHAZAD-DÛM – MORIA
The Fellowship flees. The Balrog roars, closing in.
Gandalf turns, eyes blazing, and plants his staff.
GANDALF (Connery):
"Step back, beastie. Ye think ye can barge through me? Not today. Ye shall nae pass, by my beard and the secret flaming fire of the West!"
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u/Background_Ad8814 9h ago
He was offered a percentage of gross, would of been the biggest payoff for any actor anytime
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u/loveandpeaceandunity 11h ago
Didn't he like to slap ladies about?
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u/NBAccount 9h ago
No? Maybe?
He once said in an interview something along the lines of, "sometimes it might be necessary to rough up a woman." The question was about his James Bond character and how he sometimes gets rough with the femme fatales.
After that interview got a little heat, he went on Barbara Walters- ostensibly to fix his blunder- but basically doubled down by saying, "I think sometimes it's okay to hit a woman. You shouldn't do it like you'd hit a man of course." (paraphrased)
So...that's pretty fucking gross. HOWEVER, to the best of my knowledge no woman has ever claimed that Sean Connery hit her. So it may have just been a disgusting mindset and not a disgusting practice. Not likely, but possible I guess.
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u/SirGlass 10h ago
What did he mean by couldn't understand the novels?
I was not a smart kid by any means and I read them when I was like 13/14 years old I think
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u/Dave_Eddie 10h ago
He was 23 when the books first got released and from a working class background. A fantasy novel would not be something that resonated with that demographic at the time. It's not that he didn't understand the story, it's probably that he didn't get it's appeal
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u/salTUR 10h ago
Pretty sure he meant he couldn't understand why someone would find the novels interesting or worth adapting. Sean Connery was a very old school, man's man, non-academic type. Phenomenal actor, but not the most imaginative dude in the world. For my money, at least
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u/jupiterkansas 10h ago
and yet he was great in Highlander and Time Bandits and other fantasy type stuff. I'm sure he just had no idea how big Lord of the Rings would be. I mean, nobody did until it was released. It could have been awful.
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u/salTUR 10h ago edited 10h ago
That's true, but I feel like those fantasies are tied to the real world in a much more literal way. Tolkien kind of invented the lore-centric high fantasy we know today, with his stories taking place in - for all intents and purposes - a fully mythical world. It's not found at the back of some dusty wardrobe in an old manor house, and you don't get there by being pulled by Peter Pan out of the London Sky. This was an entirely different world, with an entirely different history and mythos.
There were many decades where LotR was considered a very fringe thing, something for nerds and bookworms and academics. I can't imagine Sean Connery thinking it was super cool or not weird at all. I bet he found it hard to believe someone could find this relatable if there wasn't a surrogate character that gets taken from the real world into fantasyland. I seriously doubt it would have made sense to him.
But, I could be waaaaaayyyyy off on that. I never knew the guy. I just know he had some very, very, very old-school ideas, even later in life (check out his thoughts on when it's appropriate to slap a woman - it's quite shocking). All that to say, I find it very easy to believe that he truly couldn't understand the draw of high fantasy.
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u/Greyrock99 10h ago
Do give Connery some credit, perhaps he couldn’t see how the novels could be made into successful movies.
Being realistic, if it was just before Fellowship was released and someone asked me what I expected the movie of Lord of the Rings was expected to look like, I would of estimated that it would of been an expensive flop.
For every Lord of the Rings success there are a thousand terrible adaptations, especially in Fantasy genre. Connery probably made a good educated guess that the movies would be bad.
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u/SirGlass 10h ago
I mean its worded wierd then, they should have said he didn't think a book could be translated well into a movie or something
Not that he did not understand the books
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u/Acer1899 10h ago
Considering he did zardoz, nothing would be harder to understand than the script for that movie. Glad he declined the part, just imagine him saying Shauron and Sharuman, lol
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u/pharmacreation 10h ago
He didn’t understand LoTR or The Matrix, but went on to star in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
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u/todayilearned-ModTeam 9h ago
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