Stunt casting

Stunt casting is a term in casting that refers to the use of a gimmick or publicity stunt to fill a role in a television series, film, video games, or theatre production. Stunt casting can take many forms, ranging from a celebrity or famous non-actor cameo appearance to the use of an actor's real-life relatives to play the corresponding fictional character's relatives or younger or older versions of the same character, usually as a cameo.

While stunt casting itself is not a new thing, it became more popular due to the release of Shrek and using star powers in films, and for whatever reason, although it's not the most terrible thing in the world, Hollywood often tends to overdo it.

Examples

• In Jetsons: The Movie, Janet Waldo had returned to voice Judy Jetson. However, after she had finished recording all her lines, the execs decided to replace her in favor of the pop star Tiffany, in an attempt to try to attract a younger audience. The move caused a major backlash, and casting director Andrea Romano asked to have her name removed from the credits both in protest of the decision and to avoid hate mail.
• In The Smurfs, every single Smurf character is voiced by a celebrity instead of their original voice actors, the only voice actor from the original Smurfs cartoon series that returns here is Jonathan Winters, who initially played Grandpa Smurf, but he doesn't actually return the role of that character, and instead plays as the role for Papa Smurf. It was so critically panned that both films had these voices uncredited. Winters would die just 9 days after he finished recording his lines for the sequel.
• In The Emoji Movie, every single emoji is voiced by a celebrity instead of their original voice actors from the original film. Only one actor from the original film returns here, and that is Steven Wright, who initially played Gene's grandfather, Larry Meh. But he doesn't really return for the role of that character, instead he plays as the role of Gene's dad, Mel Meh. It was so critically panned that several DVD and Blu-Ray covers left Steven Wright's voice uncredited, and even the posters left their voices uncredited.
  • Not only that, Patrick Stewart's character is also heavily marketed and plastered everywhere on the posters, trailers, TV spots, cover art, and even the DVD and Blu-Ray covers, when his character actually gets around in just two minutes of the dialogue and doesn't even contribute anything to the film whatsoever.
• In Christopher Robin, there are some British celebrities who voiced some of the characters in the film. They consisted of Nick Mohammed, Brad Garrett, Peter Capaldi, Sophie Okonedo, and Toby Jones as Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Kanga, and Owl respectively. Despite this, they did a nice job portraying the characters.
• In The Lion King (2019), the entire original cast was replaced with a new cast (with the exception of James Earl Jones as Mufasa) for no reason, who almost all of them gave incredibly inferior performances compared to the original.
• For Space Jam: A New Legacy, Kath Soucie was initially going to reprise her role as Lola Bunny from the original Space Jam, but the day the trailer was released in April 2021, it was announced instead that Zendaya will be voicing Lola instead in the finished film, despite that Soucie has been voicing the character since her debut.
• In Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019), they casted Ryan Reynolds to voice Pikachu, however, it was met with positive reception from most people once it released. It is partially understandable since they got a different actor to play this character in the 3DS game of the same name anyway. Despite this, Pikachu's current voice actor from the games, Ikue Ōtani, still voices him when heard from anyone other than his companion.
• In SCOOB!, they had the entire cast from the TV shows and direct-to-video films replaced with popular celebrities (except Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo himself) for no reason other than to get more people to watch it. This caused Matthew Lillard and Grey DeLisle, the current voice actors of Shaggy and Daphne respectively, being bummed down due to this, and mind you, the movie was sent straight to digital anyway due to COVID-19, before eventually having a theatrical release in May 2021 in a very limited form, and only in some countries.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Ben Schwartz was announced to be voicing as the titular hedgehog instead of Roger Craig Smith, which caused initial polarized response, however, when the film was released, Schwartz's performance was praised for being faithful to the character. In fact, he originally served as a stand-in, they were going to cast a more popular celebrity like Chris Pratt (no, really) or Tom Holland to play him, but Sega and Paramount liked his performance so much they kept him.
  • During the mid-credits scene of the first movie, they brought back Colleen O'Shaughnessey, Tails' current voice actor, to reprise her role as him, and due to popular demand, she returned to play Tails in the sequel and likely all future entries of the Sonic Movie series (except Sonic Drone Home, the short that comes with every HD and Blu-Ray copy of the sequel, where Tails and Knuckles were replaced with soundalikes).
  • In addition, they also cast Idris Elba to play Knuckles which, despite being a celebrity recast of Knuckles from the games, has been met with very positive reception, with many saying he was a perfect choice for the character due to the nature of his character.
  • On top of that, the producers plan to cast an unknown celebrity role for Shadow the Hedgehog, with such predicted roles from fans including Robert Patterson, Keanu Reeves, Christian Bale, and jokingly, Chris Pratt.
• In The Secret Life of Pets 2, Patton Oswalt, while good, but felt like a miscast as Max, but to be fair, Louis C.K. had personal issues back in 2017, which certainly doesn't help in the slightest.
• Perhaps the most infamous example of stunt casting is The Super Mario Bros. Movie, animated by Illumination and distributed by Universal Pictures, who announced that Chris Pratt would voice Mario, in addition to every other voice actor from the games being replaced with a celebrity like Seth Rogen, Kevin Michael Richardson, or Jack Black as Donkey Kong, Kamek, and Bowser respectively (except Charles Martinet, the current voice actor of Mario, Luigi, etc, taking on multiple cameo roles), which was met with a mixed response from fans, causing many to laugh at some of these casting choices and spawned tons of memes. However, Donkey Kong, Kamek, Cranky Kong, and Bowser don't really talk in any of the Mario games except through speech bubbles, so this makes one of the few Mario related media that makes the characters talk (unless if it were Super Mario Sunshine in Bowser's case, or the Donkey Kong Country animated series in DK and Cranky's case). Despite the response, some fans were fine with some of the choices (particularly Charlie Day, Rogen, Richardson, and Black as Luigi, DK, Kamek, and Bowser), while others were more concerned like Pratt as Mario. However, out of all the characters, this is the first time that Foreman Spike gets to be voiced because he appears in a lot of old-school Mario media, and hadn't made a proper appearance since the Japanese release of the Game Boy Color version of Mario Golf.
  • And to be fair, celebrities that were popular during the early 90s played these characters in its live action counterpart as well, so it isn't too surprising.
  • Mind you, Charles Martinet voiced the Mario brothers in all Mario media since the 90s (yes, even the real-time animated meet and greets at conventions and Nintendo NY), which is a massive insult to both his legacy and longtime fans of the franchise.
• Trying to replicate the Mario movie controversy, Sony Pictures and Alcon Entertainment even announced that Chris Pratt would voice Garfield in the 2024 animated Garfield movie, causing people to make memes where Chris Pratt would be playing every iconic character they could think of. Not only that, Samuel L Jackson, is set to voice Vic, Garfield's biological father, a new character written for this movie, in addition to Nicholas Hoult, Hanna Waddingham, Ving Rhames, and Cecily Strong as unannounced roles, most likely as Jon, Liz, Arlene, and Nermal respectively.
  • However, Bill Murray voiced him in both live action Garfield movies, so again, this is not that surprising.
  • You know that this casting choice is a foolish idea when even Jacksfilms (the self-proclaimed "#1 fan of The Emoji Movie") predicted it less than a week before it happened in a YIAY video of him trying to fix the worst Garfield comic when he found a submission involving Chris Pratt as Mario. It's like Sony likes this YouTuber so much they decided to cast Chris Pratt as Garfield just to have his wishes fulfilled.
  • And to add insult to injury, Frank Welker played Garfield in most Garfield media since Garfield Gets Real (the first entry of the "Garfield CGI Trilogy"), disrespecting his 15 years and counting legacy as the character.
  • You know there's a massive problem with the stunt casting in this one where three of the announced actors are best known for their roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Pratt, Jackson, and Rhames as Star Lord Nick Fury and Charlie-27 respectively), likely further proving that Sony put little to no thought in casting roles for a majority of their movies and only included them for the purpose of getting as much box-office revenue as possible.
• Both live action Peter Rabbit movies depict James Corden as Peter Rabbit himself, despite other adaptations involving the character having professional voice actors play his role.
• In The Angry Birds Movie (2016), Smosh creators, Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox, both started as voice role. they barely give out a voice performance consisting of anything than other than two lines for Hal and Bubbles, which was drowned out during the climax, which is yet another example of stunt casting or a miscast just to get people to watch it.
• In Tom & Jerry (2021), a popular rapper, who is named T-Pain voices Tom the Cat himself for a single gag relating to him singing at the piano that lasts no longer than 2 minutes, but is thankfully silent for most of the film. In fact, archives of his screaming from the original show is used at least every other time he gets beaten up, so it isn't too bad compared to all the other examples above.
• In Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers (the 2022 Disney+ movie), John Mulaney and Andy Samberg voice the titular Chip and Dale, respectively, depicting the characters with more normal voices throughout the majority of the film. However, their squeaky voices were still included, with Corey Burton and Tress MacNeille set to reprise that variant of those characters for brief dialogue, which only occurred for no more than a few minutes. Along with that, Burton is set to reprise his role as Zipper and MacNeille as Gadget as well. In Zipper's case, Dennis Haysbert voices Zipper every time he talks thus this depicts Zipper with a talking voice. Eric Bana (an Australian actor and comedian) voices Monterey despite Peter Cullen being the original actor and Jim Cummings being the most recurring actor for the character. Despite this, Eric does give an accurate portrayal of Monty and it does sound pretty close to Jim's Monty.
• In Lightyear, Chris Evans voices Buzz Lightyear as opposed to Tim Allen, despite the latter being the voice of Buzz in a lot of Toy Story related projects. To be far, Tim is also a celebrity like Chris, and Buzz has gotten VA changes in some projects like Mike MacRae who voices him in some video games Buzz is in, Patrick Fraley in older video games Buzz is in, and Patrick Warburton who voices him in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Because of Chris voicing Buzz, there has been some skepticism over the choice yet its confirmed that this Buzz is different from the Buzz from Toy Story. Despite this, Chris' performance as Buzz was praised as soon as we got the first glimpse of Chris as Buzz.
• In Escape from Planet Earth (2013), Ricky Gervais' voice performance as Mr. James Bing comes off incredibly unoriginal as he sounds very bored out of his mind and doesn't seem to have a lot of energy doing his performance as a talking computer, which the auto tone not really helping out his performance in any favors either, with the robotic monotone sounding very janky at best.
• In Lyle, Lyle Crocodile (2022), pop singer Shaun Mendes voices the titular Lyle, though the slightly questionable casting decision makes sense in this context as the original storybooks this was based off involved musical performances from the titular protagonist.
• In Hotel Transylvania 4 (2022), the film also featured Twitch streamer Ninja (also known as Richard Tyler Blevins) involved as a starring voice role, he barely gives off a voice performance consisting of anything other than only two lines for the Party Monster, which was drowned out during the Cha Cha Slide in the opening scene, which means that this is yet another example of stunt casting or an miscast just to get people to watch it, This was backfired way back when the movie was planned to release in theaters before they canceled the theatrical release because of the COVID-19 pandemic, This made Ninja an miscast instead.

Why Everybody Hates This Move

1. The biggest problem with stunt casting and why everybody hates it is that it focuses more on the star power than the acting skills themselves, which means they focus on more making money than having really good voice actors or singers due to this.
   • Popular actors nowadays can even replace voice actors just because of their popularity rather than for their talent, most of the time without informing the voice actors they were going to replace, which is often noticed in remakes of earlier films, or animated adaptations of TV shows and video games (even in live action/animated hybrid films as well).
2. It adds up to the common practice of recycling and milking actors which causes them to be oversaturated and overshadows other well-known actors in favor of star power, especially Marvel actors.
3. They seem to ignore that even voice actors that are not associated with star power in Hollywood can still be in those films. For instance, take Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius for example as it had mostly had voice actors like Debi Derryberry, Rob Paulsen, Jeffrey Garcia, Frank Welker, Candi Milo, Carlos Alazraqui, etc.
   • Another example is that even the stand-alone sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy still kept voice actors like Eric Bauza, Bob Bergen, Jeff Bergman, Fred Tatasciore, and Candi Milo as their respective Tunes despite Lola and Speedy being voiced by bigger celebrities, which are Zendaya and Gabriel Iglesias.
   • Even Colleen O'Shaughnessey got to voice Tails in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie during the post credits, and the sequel.
   • Some non-Hollywood tier celebrities still get to appear in big films in some form as a major/minor character or voice cameo. For example, Jeannie Tirado (a voice actress) got to appear on Soul (the Pixar movie) as a minor character/voice cameo and Roger Craig Smith voiced the main antagonist major character, Ripslinger, from Planes (the Disney movie). Other infamous examples is that Jane Lynch got to appear in mostly obscure films during the mid-2010s only as a minor character or voice cameo and Anna Faris literally got to be the voice of Jailbreak in The Emoji Movie.
   • And who could not forget stuff like Roger Craig Smith, Kyle Hebert, Reuben Langton, and Gerald C. Rivers voicing their respective video game cameos in Wreck-It Ralph and the infamous 2018 sequel.
   • Even Kevin Michael Richardson (who is most of the time a voice actor who got to voice characters in many different projects in comparison to other cast members like Chris Pratt and Jack Black) voiced Kamek in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. In addition to Charles Martinet, longtime voice actor of Mario, Luigi, and several other Mario characters, who instead provides the voice as Mario and Luigi's dad.
   • Frank Welker still got to voice Scooby-Doo in SCOOB!.
   • Jim Cummings still got to voice Pooh and Tigger in Christopher Robin.
   • In Urban Jungle, two famous YouTubers, Brian Hull and Toby Turner (aka Tobuscus), were both going to star as the voices of Terry and Terri the Toucans as a cameo, like Jessie J, Ninja, and Smosh as Olivia, Ronaldo, Spancer, and Spaxer. However, MacFarlane refused to let them be in the TV series due to Hull focusing more on his videos and Turner's assault allegations that happened during production of The Angry Birds Movie.
4. It's like a gamble. Sometimes it would work while other times it won't work out that well.
5. Sometimes certain actors may not fit well with a character they are voicing. It would take more than stardom to figure out what your actor of choice can do.
6. Overall, stunt casting is arguably the weakest move ever; even worse compared to product placement.

Redeeming Qualities

1. At times, stunt casting would surprisingly be good, like when Ryan Reynolds did an amazing performance as Detective Pikachu himself, the same also goes for Ben Schwartz's performance as Sonic in the 2020 Sonic movie and the sequel, along with Idris Elba as Knuckles, and the stunt casting in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which were well-received. John Mulaney and Andy Samberg as Chip and Dale were also well-received. However, for the former, Ikue Ōtani is still cast for Detective Pikachu's voice when heard by anyone outside Tim (the human protagonist), as with Corey Burton and Tress MacNeille reprising their roles as Chip and Dale in brief dialogue.
   • Like it said above, it is more about when studios focus on star power instead of acting skills when it becomes a problem.
   • Heck on the topic of Chip and Dale themselves, maybe the stunt casting could give certain characters a new breath of fresh in a new way. Take Chip and Dale for example, it may sound weird seeing Chip and Dale speak like John and Andy respectively yet their portrayal makes so much sense due to their film being a meta-story and they sometimes speak in high-pitched voices.
2. Sometimes, the cast the studio intends to replace is at least informed or allowed permission for their role to be replaced.
3. When it comes to casting celebrities for original characters made specifically for these adaptations, it can be justified (e.g., Vic in the animated Garfield movie).
   • The same can be said about popular celebrities voicing certain characters due to the character being a completely different alteration compared to what the character is usually depicted. (e.g., Will Arnett as Peter Pan/Sweet Pete due to Peter Pan being depicted as evil, depressed, insane, and aged up in the Chip N' Dale movie) or the character the celebrity is voicing has never been voiced before (e.g., Sebastian Maniscalco as Foreman Spike in the The Super Mario Bros. Movie)
4. Depending on the situation, the change in casting can sometimes be justified like let's say you wanted a certain actor to voice a certain character yet it was reported that they died, too busy with another project, or retired. Now it's time to find someone else.
   • Another instance would be how child actors who appeared in previous projects would grow up so you got to find someone else.Co

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