Not every superhero can be played by the same guy for 25 years like Wolverine. These Marvel characters have been recast multiple times — for better or for worse.
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00:00What's up, everybody?
00:01Griffey here.
00:02Not every superhero can be played by the same guy
00:04for 25 years like Wolverine.
00:07These Marvel characters have been recast multiple times
00:09for better or for worse.
00:13Marvel's most iconic hero is also one of its most
00:16frequently recast, as Spider-Man has
00:18been played by three different people
00:20in his big screen history.
00:21When Peter Parker swung his way into the hearts of moviegoers
00:24everywhere in 2002, he was played by Tobey Maguire.
00:28Who are you?
00:30You know who I am.
00:31I do?
00:32Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
00:35Spider-Man was loved by critics and a smash at the box office.
00:39And Spider-Man 2 is still considered
00:41one of the greatest superhero sequels of all time.
00:44Unfortunately, though, Spider-Man 3
00:46missed the mark, quashing plans for a fourth installment
00:49and prompting Sony to search for a new man to put on the mask.
00:52That search ended with Andrew Garfield,
00:54who was selected to play the title character in 2012's
00:57The Amazing Spider-Man.
00:59It did go well enough to get a sequel,
01:01but The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ended up
01:03being overstuffed with plot lines and villains,
01:06making it unfocused and confusing to follow.
01:08At that point, Sony decided to go another way,
01:10making a deal with Marvel that allowed the wall crawler
01:13to appear in the MCU.
01:15Tom Holland debuted as Peter Parker in Captain America
01:18Civil War, becoming the first live action
01:20version of the character to actually
01:22look like a high schooler.
01:23He'd go on to reprise his role in multiple Avengers movies
01:27and three solo films, the third of which
01:29brought back Maguire and Garfield
01:31as their Spider-Man variants.
01:34Peter!
01:34Yeah?
01:35Oh, sorry.
01:36Sorry, did you mean me?
01:38With a fourth movie scheduled for release in 2026,
01:40it doesn't look like Holland is passing the baton anytime soon.
01:45The daughter of Ant-Man, Scott Lang, Cassie Lang,
01:47has been recast multiple times since her first appearance
01:50in 2015.
01:51In Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp,
01:53she served as her father's motivation to better himself
01:56and is portrayed by the adorable Abby Rider Fortson.
02:00You can do it.
02:02You can do anything.
02:05You're the world's greatest grandma.
02:07As any parent knows, though, kids grow up fast.
02:10And Cassie had to grow up extra quick,
02:12thanks to the five-year time skip in Avengers Endgame.
02:15When Scott finally reunites with his teenage daughter
02:17after half a decade in the quantum realm,
02:20she's played by Emma Fuhrman.
02:22Comic fans who had been looking forward
02:23to seeing Cassie take on the superhero persona
02:26Stature in live action were rewarded in 2023
02:29when she put on a size-shifting suit in Ant-Man
02:32and the Wasp, Quantumania.
02:34Well, maybe rewarded is a strong word to use,
02:37considering how lousy the movie was.
02:39Either way, she was once again recast, played this time
02:42by Katharine Newton.
02:43It doesn't look like there will be any new Ant-Man
02:45movies anytime soon, but if Marvel ends up
02:48bringing the young Avengers into live action,
02:50Newton will almost certainly be returning.
02:53I'm so proud of you.
02:55I feel like I'm hugging Godzilla.
02:58I know.
02:58It feels so cool.
03:01Hulk has an impressive live action history,
03:03having appeared in a 1978 television series
03:06and a handful of made-for-TV films in the 1980s and 1990s.
03:11Rather than using motion capture and CGI
03:13to turn a mild-mannered scientist into a giant,
03:16the best solution at the time was
03:18to find a big guy and smaller guy
03:20and paint the big one green.
03:21Bill Bixby played Dr. David Bruce Banner,
03:24while Lou Ferrigno was his angry alter ego.
03:27When Hulk jumped to the big screen in 2003,
03:30he was played by Eric Bana.
03:31The Ang Lee-directed movie definitely has its fans,
03:34but was overshadowed by the likes of Spider-Man and X-Men.
03:37When The Incredible Hulk hit theaters five years later
03:40with Edward Norton in the title role,
03:42that too was overshadowed, this time by Iron Man.
03:45It seems like Hulk just can't catch a break.
03:47He hasn't had a solo project since 2008,
03:50even though several of his Avengers teammates
03:53already have their own trilogies.
03:55Is that all you got?
04:01In the Avengers and other Marvel projects since,
04:04Hulk has been portrayed by Mark Ruffalo.
04:06Although his version of Banner
04:07is supposed to be the same character played by Norton,
04:10they act nothing alike.
04:11While Ruffalo makes a solid Banner,
04:13he hasn't exactly had the chance to shine
04:15ever since Thanos beat the green out of him
04:17during Infinity War.
04:18The future of Hulk remains in question,
04:20but Ruffalo probably isn't going anywhere.
04:24I put the brains and the brawn together,
04:27and now they give me best of both worlds.
04:31With a nickname like Thunderbolt,
04:33it's obvious that Thaddeus Ross is a big deal.
04:35He's an important part of Hulk's story.
04:37He's both the father of Banner's love interest, Betty Ross,
04:40and the army general who tries to hunt the scientist down
04:43when he goes green.
04:44This is pretty much what Sam Elliott and William Hurt do
04:46in 2003's Hulk and 2008's The Incredible Hulk, respectively.
04:52If I told you we were putting a team together, it was we.
04:57Eight years after playing Ross for the first time,
04:59Hurt returned for Captain America Civil War
05:02to give the Avengers a legislative slap in the face
05:04as the Secretary of State.
05:06The Sokovia Accords nearly tore the team apart,
05:09but Hurt stuck around for two more Avengers movies
05:11as well as Black Widow.
05:13Hurt died in 2022,
05:14but Ross is more important than ever.
05:17Portrayed now by Harrison Ford,
05:19Captain America Brave New World sees him
05:21in the office of the President of the United States.
05:25I have to admit, I'm still getting used to the new look.
05:28They said to lose the mustache or lose the election.
05:31Ross is more than just a politician now.
05:34He's the Red Hulk,
05:35seemingly involved in a massive conspiracy
05:37and facing off against Sam Wilson's Captain America.
05:40He's also said to be making an appearance in Thunderbolts,
05:43but it's unclear whether he'd be giving orders to the team
05:46or suing them for copyright infringement.
05:492000's X-Men was one of the first big screen movies
05:51to establish the power of superheroes at the box office,
05:54introducing new fans
05:55to all sorts of complex mutant characters.
05:58Tyler Mane's Sabretooth was not one of them.
06:00With a performance that mostly consisted
06:02of growls and grunts,
06:03his character wasn't even identified
06:05as Logan's brother in the movie.
06:07While he was a convincing henchman
06:08to Ian McKellen's Magneto,
06:10he didn't bring a lot of subtlety to the role.
06:12When it came time to cast X-Men Origins Wolverine,
06:15Sabretooth was played not by Mane,
06:17but rather by Liev Schreiber,
06:19who brought nuance and a good amount
06:21of actual dialogue to the role.
06:22The movie centered on him and Wolverine
06:24as two brothers on opposite sides of a great battle,
06:27but he didn't get a chance
06:29to continue the role in later films.
06:32I'm gonna cut your goddamn head off.
06:35See if that works.
06:38Instead, for Deadpool and Wolverine,
06:40Mane returned to play Sabretooth.
06:42This time, everyone was in agreement
06:44that he was Wolverine's brother,
06:45but now he had been discarded in the void
06:47with other misfit mutants.
06:49His cameo lasts just seconds
06:51before Logan takes care of him personally.
06:54Known for his brutality and strict moral code,
06:56the anti-hero known as the Punisher
06:58has had a reputation as one of Marvel's darkest characters
07:01since his comic book debut.
07:03Any live-action adaptation of the character's story
07:05needed to be sufficiently brutal.
07:07The first attempt at this was in 1989's
07:10The Punisher, starring Dolph Lundgren.
07:12Then there was the 2004 reboot,
07:14also called The Punisher,
07:15with Thomas Jane in the title role.
07:17Then the series was rebooted a second time
07:19in 2008's Punisher Warzone,
07:22which cast Ray Stevenson as the merciless vigilante.
07:25All three movies were panned by critics,
07:27making comic book fans wonder
07:29if the character would ever receive a worthy adaptation.
07:32In 2016, they finally stopped wondering
07:34as Salvation finally arrived in the form of Jon Bernthal.
07:38Bernthal portrayed the Punisher
07:40in the second season of Netflix's Daredevil in 2016,
07:43and he was given a solo show
07:44that premiered the following year.
07:46Both projects were massive successes,
07:48leaving the door open for his version of the character
07:51to eventually appear in the MCU.
07:54With Daredevil Born Again,
07:55Bernthal is under new management,
07:57but he's still free to punish as he pleases.
08:01No, I'm not the one that dies, kid.
08:06I'm the one that does the killing.
08:07The Fantastic Four, consisting of Mr. Fantastic,
08:10The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, and The Thing
08:13have gone through multiple iterations on their road
08:16to joining the MCU.
08:18Needless to say, it hasn't quite been smooth sailing.
08:21The trouble started in 1994,
08:23when notoriously cheap movie producer Roger Corman
08:25was tasked with bringing The Fantastic Four into live action.
08:29That version starred Alex Hyde-White as Reed Richards,
08:32Rebecca Staub as Sue Storm,
08:34Jay Underwood as Johnny Storm,
08:36Michael Bailey-Smith as Ben Grimm in human form,
08:39and Carl Sirfaglio as Ben in Thing form.
08:42But the film never saw an official release.
08:44When Marvel started taking the movie business
08:46more seriously in the 2000s,
08:48a new Fantastic Four was assembled.
08:50The lineup featured in the 2005 film
08:52in its 2007 sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer,
08:56was Yolan Griffith as Mr. Fantastic,
08:58Jessica Alba as The Invisible Woman,
09:00Chris Evans as The Human Torch,
09:01and Michael Chiklis as The Thing.
09:04Evans even briefly reprised his role
09:06as Johnny Storm in Deadpool and Wolverine.
09:08In 2015, The Fantastic Four weren't quite ready
09:11to make the leap to the MCU due to rights issues,
09:13but that didn't stop 20th Century Fox
09:16from sending the team out once again.
09:18The poorly received reboot featured Miles Teller
09:20as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Sue Storm,
09:23Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm,
09:25and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm.
09:28You gotta say, it's fantastic.
09:31Say that again?
09:32The team's future in the MCU was teased in 2022
09:35when John Krasinski made a surprise appearance
09:37as Earth-838's variant of Mr. Fantastic
09:40in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness,
09:43before being turned into spaghetti.
09:45It won't be until 2025 that the other members of the team
09:49make their MCU debut in The Fantastic Four First Steps.
09:52With Pedro Pascal as Mr. Fantastic,
09:55Vanessa Kirby as The Invisible Woman,
09:57and the new Captain Marvel,
09:59Vanessa Kirby as The Invisible Woman,
10:01Joseph Quinn as The Human Torch,
10:03and Ebon Moss Baccarach as The Thing,
10:05this'll probably be the team's most enjoyable adventure yet.
10:09Where The Fantastic Four goes, Doom follows.
10:12Each cinematic version of Marvel's first family
10:15has a version of Victor Von Doom close by,
10:17causing them all sorts of headaches.
10:19In Roger Corman's unreleased Fantastic Four adaptation,
10:22Doom was played by Joseph Culp,
10:24but he looked more like a cosplayer
10:25than a powerful dictator.
10:27Doctor Doom's first real live-action appearance
10:30was in 2005, with Julian McMahon
10:32beating out Robert Downey Jr. for the role.
10:34This version of Doom is the CEO of Von Doom Industries,
10:38who decides to take revenge on the Four
10:40after the failed space mission
10:41that gave them their powers hurts his company
10:44and starts transforming his flesh into living metal.
10:47This is what a man looks like who embraces his destiny.
10:54McMahon also appeared in the sequel,
10:55Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer, two years later.
10:59After that was the Doom from the critically reviled
11:022015 reboot played by Toby Kebbell.
11:04A lot of Marvel fans didn't appreciate
11:06this take on the character,
11:07whose appearance is much more robotic
11:10than Doom in the comics.
11:11Finally, the time came for Doctor Doom
11:13to terrorize the MCU,
11:15and in a full circle reveal,
11:17Marvel announced that the Latverian monarch
11:19will be played by none other than Robert Downey Jr.
11:22Will RDJ actually bring something new to the role
11:25or will his performance be remembered
11:27as just another stunt casting?
11:29Only time will tell.