When you sit down to write a screenplay, they say it can help to envision the actors you want saying the lines. And it would be hard to pick a better person to say the lines in your script than one of the Toms -- either Hanks or Cruise.And that's how it felt for two decades, where they became the biggest acting stars on the planet.But what happens when you knock out a terrific, tailor-made screenplay for a star of that magnitude, and he politely passes?Well, you just go to the other Tom.This is precisely what happened to Cameron Crowe with his 1996 classic, Jerry Maguire.Let's dive in. - YouTubewww.youtube.comThe Tom Hanks Role That Never HappenedIn a 2017 interview with Deadline, Cameron Crowe detailed how Jerry Maguire got started with a potential Hanks and his Big producer James L. Brooks.At the time, Crowe knew he needed a star to make the movie happen. And in his mind, that star was Tom Hanks. But Tom Hanks was having a crazy '90s, with back-to-back Academy Awards and getting sent every offer in town.As Crowe put it, "The idea was, let’s not be slaves to writing this as a Tom Hanks in capital letters movie, but let’s have Tom Hanks on our minds as a guy who would play Jerry Maguire. So we were kind of developing it for him, based on us knowing he really wanted to do something with us. But as Hanks got more and more into that white hot...
Published By: NoFilmSchool - Today