Originally, Robin Williams had been chosen to lend his voice to Howard the Duck, Marvel hero whose film had been a real disaster in 1986, but the actor decided to throw in the towel very quickly.
Recently rehabilitated by the What If animated series and a few small cameo appearances in Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s feathered hero known as Howard the Duck got off to the most disastrous start to his film career.
Hero of a live-action (and animatronic) feature film produced by George Lucas and directed by Williard Huyck in 1986, the space palmipede had actually found himself with his beak in the water as soon as the film was released, shouted down from all sides and even unanimously considered a real (ca)nanar.
A most unpleasant experience for Howard’s vocal interpreter – the American comedian Chip Zien – that the latter had mentioned in the columns of the HollywoodReporter in July 2021, on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the film. The opportunity for the actor to reveal that before him, another much more famous personality had been hired to double the extraterrestrial.
Indeed, originally, the voice of Howard the Duck should have been that of Robin Williams (whose vocal talent has subsequently been widely used with the role of the Genie of Aladdin).
According to Chip Zien, who subsequently took over the role, Robin Williams would not have lasted more than three days in recording, his improvised tirades failing to synchronize with the beak movements of the animatronics.
Lucasfilm Ltd.
“What I was told was that on the third day Robin said, ‘I can’t do this. It’s insane. I can’t find the rhythm. I’m completely restricted .I’m forced to handcuff myself to match the duck’s beak movements,'” thus told Chip Zien.
“So on Memorial Day in 1985, I got a call from my agent saying, ‘You need to go straight to the airport! Robin Williams just quit, and you’re now Howard the Duck. You need to be there tonight. There’s a ticket waiting for you at the counter.’ I was incredibly excited.”
Unfortunately for Chip Zien, as we said earlier, things didn’t go as well as he imagined, far from it. As for Robin Williams, we can say that he will have had a hollow nose (or beak) when he landed just in time from a project that was doomed to failure, and which could have harmed his career.
(Re)discover the trailer for the film…