There are lots of stories we hear all the time about certain movie roles that almost went to other people. One of the most famous ones obviously is how Tom Selleck was supposed to be Indiana Jones instead of Harrison Ford. There was a schedule conflict and Tom decided to go and do a little show called Magnum P.I. instead and Harrison become Indy.
However, there is one story that I never even heard of before until now. In the original Terminator, most people know that Arnold was originally going to play Kyle Reese (the character who become John Connor’s father and who was eventually played wonderfully by Michael Biehn). What I didn’t know was who was originally pegged to play the killer robot. Are you ready for this? O.J. Simpson. No, i’m not kidding. How funny is that?
I can see it now. The Terminator travels back through time in his Ford Broncco time machine hunting down John Connor who he’s sure has been fooling around with his wife… then puts on his “Terminator CXT4000 Black Assasination gloves that hardly fit him to carry out his evil deeds. Ya…
Think about it… how different would not only The Terminator have been… but movie history in general? Wow.
They wanted him at first but they said that they thought people would not accept him as The Terminator because he was to nice of a person.
Yup just ten years later that would all change.
Well, he sure did terminate his ex-wife.
Muahahahaha!!!
This is just hilarious!
O.J as the Terminator, oh my fucking god! The thing is I can totally picture it. But with him in this role there would never have been a Terminator 2 & 3. And also (and much more important) O.J would never have played the Nordberg in the Naked Gun – movies. Which would have been a catastrophic event. Man I love the “Naked Gun”, easily one of my favorite comedies of all time.
Do you remember the time when spoof movies actually used to be good? Airplane, The Naked Gun, Loaded Weapon, Hot Shots…all fucking classics. What do we get now? Scary Movie 4, Date Movie? WTF???
Wow. OJ as the terminator. I can’t even begin to picture him in that role.
Another actor that supposed to play the Terminator was Lance Henriksen, but ended up playing one of the police officers and of course Bishop from Cameron’s Aliens.