Despite a very generous check coupled with a solid gold proposal from Warner, Sean Connery refused to play the illustrious wizard in Peter Jackson’s river saga. For what reasons ?
Let it be said: Ian McKellen has gone down in history for his wonderful incarnation of the wizard Gandalf in the river saga orchestrated by Peter Jackson. However, the filmmaker did not have the actor in mind at all, but Sean Connery, one of the most respectable and respected figures in Hollywood.
The production was so eager to see the comedian take on the role that they were ready to drop him more than $30 million, plus 15% of the proceeds from the upcoming trilogy. Yes yes, you read that right. Alas, the latter always refused.
That said, we imagine that the actor would probably have been one more potential victim of the famous Hollywood Accounting. Peter Jackson paid the price himself, to the point of suing New Line Cinema (at the time a subsidiary of Warner Bros.), which produced the saga, believing that he had been harmed by accounting practices depriving him of potential profits. ; including the revenue generated by DVD sales of The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring…
Still, Connery will justify his refusal a little later in an interview given to the New Zealand Herald newspaper: “I didn’t understand the story. I read the book. I read the script. I saw the movie. And I still don’t understand it. I’ll be interested in doing something that I don’t understand. not entirely, but not for 18 months”.
Like that it’s clear. It will be recalled for the form that the actor refused famous roles during his career, like that of Morpheus in Matrix (and refused it there too because he did not understand the story!); that of Deckard in Blade Runner; or Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter saga.
It was unfortunately on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a very painful critical and commercial failure, that Sean Connery put an end to his very rich career in 2003. Gandalf would certainly have had more panache…