10 Movies That Chose The Wrong Lead Character
Jacob should've been the protagonist of the Fantastic Beasts franchise.
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00:00It goes without saying that a protagonist can make or break a movie, get them right
00:05and they can bolster an entire franchise basically by themselves, but get it wrong and a potentially
00:12lucrative IP can crater overnight.
00:15But sometimes the results are a little less dramatic, even as it's clear that the filmmakers
00:19hedged their bets on the wrong character to lead their movie and probably should have
00:23looked elsewhere.
00:24That's what we're covering today as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these
00:28are 10 Movies That Chose The Wrong Lead Character.
00:3210.
00:33Circe – Eternals
00:35Though Marvel's Eternals is certainly an ensemble-led affair, the de facto protagonist
00:40is clearly Circe.
00:41She's an Eternal who possesses the promising ability to manipulate matter, but spends far
00:45too much of her screen time trapped in a love triangle.
00:48She's not a bad character, but she's just not a hugely compelling lead, despite a solid
00:53effort from Gemma Chan.
00:54Perhaps had more time been spent developing her complex relationship with humanity, she
00:58might have seemed a more fitting protagonist.
01:01Ultimately, the Eternals' lineup contains several more interesting and well-wrought
01:06characters.
01:07Perhaps best of all, Fastos, whose unique role in shaping humanity's development through
01:10technology gives him a direct and fascinating tether to the audience.
01:159.
01:16Ford Brody – Godzilla
01:18The MonsterVerse admittedly doesn't have a stellar track record with human characters
01:22as it stands, though the decision to assign Godzilla 2014's protagonist duties to the
01:26painfully dull U.S. Navy officer Ford Brody was an especially egregious mistake.
01:33The movie's first act benefited considerably from the presence of Ford's father, Joe,
01:37with the marketing emphasizing Bryan Cranston's role in that film, only for him to be suddenly
01:41killed off at the end of Act 1.
01:44Even Bryan Cranston himself has been vocal about his character's death being the wrong
01:47call, deeming it an utter waste, echoing the sentiment from many fans that Joe should have
01:52been the movie's lead and his son swapped into a supporting part.
01:55Instead, Ford takes the reins in a movie where Godzilla's screen time is relatively scant,
02:00and without the character generating any sparks of interest at all, the film becomes a pure
02:04drag almost any time it focuses on him.
02:078.
02:08Sandy – Grease
02:09Sandy is the outright lead of the hit musical Grease, though in more recent years there's
02:14been a fair amount of pushback against her character arc.
02:17That qualifies as her happy ending as changing herself entirely for the boy in her life,
02:22But aside from that, Sandy is just a bit of a one-note character, all things considered.
02:26Especially compared to the leader of the Pink Ladies, Rizzo, Rizzo is a rough-edged character
02:31whose arc is considerably more interesting.
02:33Yet while Sandy's decision to drop her pretensions towards properness are rewarded at the film's
02:38end, Rizzo's free-spirited nature is largely shamed throughout the story.
02:43But Rizzo is a self-actualized person from the get-go and doesn't need a boy to get
02:47her there.
02:48She's pretty harsh to Sandy, but it's born more from a frustration with her slavish
02:52devotion to propriety, and the film still does a solid job of revealing Rizzo's more
02:56sensitive and vulnerable side.
02:58Rizzo isn't as easily defined as Sandy, but that's part of why she's a far more
03:02interesting character and ultimately worthier of being the role model that young girls could
03:06look up to.
03:077.
03:08Cole Young – Mortal Kombat 2021
03:11Despite Mortal Kombat being one of the most iconic and recognizable video game franchises
03:15in history, Hollywood still thought that last year's new movie needed an audience
03:19insert character for some unknown reason.
03:22And so the movie is led by an entirely original creation, MMA fighter Cole Young, who is later
03:27revealed to be the descendant of Hanzo Hasashi, aka Scorpion.
03:31Now Louis Tan does a fine enough job with the meager scraps that he has, but both he
03:35and his family feel like wildly unnecessary additions in a film overflowing with beloved
03:40existing characters.
03:42There are several easy potential protagonists among the lot of them, especially Liu Kang
03:45and Scorpion, not to mention Johnny Cage who doesn't even appear in the film.
03:49Pre-release Cage's absence seemed so baffling that many fans, ourselves included, believed
03:54that Cole was actually going to become Johnny Cage by the film's end, but alas, that didn't
03:58happen.
03:59It's just totally ridiculous that in 2021, with Hollywood supposedly adapting video games
04:03with a degree of respect and reverence, we're still getting very cynical decisions like
04:07this.
04:086.
04:09Julie James – I Know What You Did Last Summer
04:12I Know What You Did Last Summer's protagonist is Julie James, a smart, sensible, beautiful
04:16young woman, but ultimately is a rather boring and dead ordinary choice for the slasher flick's
04:21final girl.
04:22Many fans of the movie believe that there was a far better lead character waiting in
04:25the wings, and that's Julie's good pal Helen.
04:28The fact that Helen has her own Wikipedia page while Julie doesn't really says everything
04:32that needs to be said about the respective impact on the audience and general pop culture.
04:37At first glance, Helen seems to be a stereotypical horror movie beauty queen, defined by vapid
04:42self-interest and little else.
04:44Yet, there's a surprising depth to Helen that exposes her deep-running vein of emotional
04:49vulnerability.
04:50Helen is evidently wracked with guilt over the fatal car accident that she was involved
04:54in and has a fraught home life to boot.
04:56We're compelled to root for Helen to survive, and so it's such a crushing letdown that
05:00she's ultimately killed off at the end of an unforgettable chase sequence, despite surviving
05:04in the novel no less.
05:06Julie's fate was never really in doubt, which could have made it such a fantastic
05:10surprise to kill the prototypical final girl and have Helen make it to the end instead.
05:155.
05:16Raleigh Beckett – Pacific Rim
05:18Now Charlie Hunman did all that could be done with Pacific Rim's wafer-thin protagonist
05:23Raleigh Beckett, but the movie really belongs to the infinitely more memorable and appealing
05:27supporting character Mako Mori.
05:30Now Mako admittedly has a relatively large role in the film, but there's no denying
05:34that she plays second fiddle to Raleigh, who by comparison is a rather uninteresting,
05:38charisma-free generic white guy lead.
05:40Perhaps the single most memorable sequence from the film is the flashback detailing the
05:44loss of Mako's parents in a kaiju attack on Tokyo, resulting in her subsequently being
05:49adopted.
05:50Between Mako's tragic backstory, her strong willed determination, and the admittedly terrific
05:54performance, it's really a no-brainer that she should have led this blockbuster.
05:58However, releasing in 2013 as it did, long before Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel finally
06:03convinced crusty Hollywood executives that female-led tentpoles were viable, the apparently
06:07smart, sensible choice was picking the bland, interchangeable dude.
06:12Ironically, with Raleigh not returning for the sequel, 2018's Pacific Rim Uprising,
06:16it would have been the perfect opportunity for Mako to slide into the lead role, but
06:20instead, she returned for a mere fleeting cameo in which her character was inexplicably
06:24killed off.
06:25Cool.
06:264.
06:27Sam Carpenter – Scream 2022
06:30The recent fifth Scream film did a rock-solid job of introducing audiences to a new cast
06:35of likeable young characters, capable of carrying the franchise forward with or without the
06:39original surviving heroes.
06:41Scream's lead character ended up being Sam Carpenter, who is eventually revealed to be
06:45the biological daughter of one of the series' original killers, Billy Loomis.
06:49While that is an interesting idea to make the series' new lead the descendant of the
06:53original villain, who appears to have inherited their aptitude at bloodletting no less, as
06:57a protagonist Sam pales somewhat in comparison to her sister Tara.
07:01Tara becomes an immediate sympathetic character from the film's very first scene, where
07:06she unexpectedly survives a run-in with Ghostface.
07:09In addition to being a horror film fan, Tara takes an incredible amount of punishment over
07:13the course of the movie, cementing both her vulnerability and her toughness, ensuring
07:17that she feels the most Sydney-like of the new characters.
07:20Furthermore, when comparing the two's acting capabilities, Tara is just simply better,
07:24more deeply felt and persuasive.
07:26Both sisters are at least set to return for Scream 6, though, which begins shooting very
07:30soon.
07:313.
07:32Jim Preston – Passengers
07:34Passengers was one of 2016's most hotly anticipated films, the star pairing of Jennifer
07:39Lawrence and Chris Pratt in a big-budget sci-fi romance having box office gravy written all
07:44over it.
07:45And yet, it ultimately released to a fairly muted response from critics and audiences
07:48alike due to the rather contentious characterization of protagonist Jim.
07:52After being awoken from cryo-sleep 90 years early and spending a year living on his own
07:56on a spaceship, Jim decides to wake up a fellow passenger.
08:00The problem is, of course, is that rather than focus on this action as a product of
08:03Jim's unstable loneliness, the script tries to segue it into a genuinely affecting love
08:08story in which a selfish schmuck romances the smoking-hot woman he irreversibly woke
08:12up from slumber against her will.
08:15Many critics noted that a big problem of this movie is its point of view, and that having
08:19a story unfold from her perspective rather than Jim's would have positioned the empathy
08:23in a more agreeable way.
08:24It still would have faced an uphill struggle to convince audiences that Jim's act wasn't
08:28one of total scum-baggery, even accepting his crushing loneliness.
08:32But given that we're firmly on Aurora's side, having us experience events alongside
08:36her would have righted a lot of the script's inherent tonal issues.
08:402.
08:41Newt – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
08:43It's fair to say that Fantastic Beasts protagonist Newt is a fairly unconventional lead for a
08:48massive blockbuster IP.
08:50He's not even remotely charismatic, has a number of bizarre physical and verbal tics,
08:54and actor Eddie Redmayne believes that he's on the autistic spectrum.
08:57There is a bumbling charm to Newt, for sure, but he's simply not nearly as likeable as
09:01his good pal Jacob is, the New York baker who ends up inadvertently joining Newt on
09:06his magical adventures.
09:07For one, any time the character is on screen, you get an effortlessly rabble-rousing performance.
09:12But more than that, Jacob is the perfect vessel through which audiences can be introduced
09:16to this corner of the wizarding world.
09:19Countless blockbusters have proven the success of using an audience-surrogate character who
09:22is as clueless as the viewer, allowing them to organically experience the world alongside
09:26us.
09:27And Jacob fits the role like a glove.
09:29Though it would be easy for Jacob to end up being relegated to the comic relief role,
09:33his relationship with Queenie and his passion for baking bring a lot of heart and soul to
09:37a series that is admittedly often lacking in it.
09:40It's probably quite fitting that Newt often feels like a passenger in his own franchise,
09:44almost as if J.K.
09:45Rowling realises that there are more compelling characters elsewhere.
09:481.
09:49Rey – Star Wars The Force Awakens
09:52And so we wrap up with possibly a controversial choice that, as potential rich as Star Wars'
09:58Rey was, she shouldn't have led the sequel trilogy as its Luke Skywalker-esque protagonist.
10:04After Rey's solid introduction, she settles into an over-familiar character rhythm, largely
10:08working through the archetypal hero's journey beats that we've seen before with little
10:12in the way of creative variation.
10:14But there are two infinitely more interesting choices for the sequel trilogy's protagonist
10:18– Finn, a former Stormtrooper, who fans understandably expected to be the sequel's
10:22true hero, and more ambitiously, the villainous Kylo Ren.
10:26Kylo Ren is far and away the most complex and intriguing character of the entire sequel
10:30trilogy, and building The Force Awakens around him would have been an especially bold move.
10:36Audiences clearly responded strongly to the character, in large part due to Adam Driver's
10:40superb performance, and several years removed from the sequels, he's really the only new
10:44character who's had much cultural staying power whatsoever.
10:47Granted, Disney would be understandably nervous about making an antagonistic character their
10:51lead, and so Finn would have been a solid second choice.
10:54Again, Rey is a fine enough character, but she's also painfully unadventurous.
10:58And there we go my friends, those were 10 movies that chose the wrong lead actor.
11:01I hope that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in
11:04the comments section below.
11:06As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJ with a zero,
11:10or you can swing by Live and Let's Dice, where I do all of my streaming outside of
11:13work as well as my Warhammer Battle Reports, and it'd be great to see you over there.
11:17But before I go, I just want to say one thing.
11:19Even though we detailed today a lot about lead characters who probably weren't in the
11:23right roles, you my friend are the starring role of your life, and you deserve all of
11:27the love, happiness, and success, all of the good things my friend, and do not let anything
11:30or anyone else tell you otherwise.
11:32You are a massive ledge, and I want you to go out there and absolutely smash your life
11:36goals today.
11:37I believe in you.
11:38As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak
11:41to you soon.
11:42Bye.