Movies
Kevin Costner turned down one of the best movies in history for one of his biggest flops
Costner tops a list of stars who turned down the role of Andy Dufresne in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ that would eventually go to Tim Robbins.
Despite a career full of ups and downs, the name of Kevin Costner has hardly diminished in popularity thanks to films like ‘The Untouchables’, ‘A Perfect World’ or the Oscar-winning ‘Dances With Wolves’. However, he also has some commercial failures, some really striking and well known, as is the case of ‘Waterworld’, produced by himself and which had a not inconsiderable budget at that time (1995) of 170 million dollars. This figure was enough to be the most expensive movie ever made, but it was not enough to achieve a box office that could be considered a success, on the contrary, it remained at 264 million.
Unfortunately for Costner, this stumble did not come alone, and he had to carry on his conscience the fact that he had refused to star in one of the best movies in history, the best adaptation of a novel.
Tim Robbins has picked up the baton left by Kevin Costner... and more stars
In fact, we are talking about ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, the Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman movie that boasts a spectacular 9.3 rating on IMDB. Based on the novel by Stephen King, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ was directed by Frank Darabont (King’s fetish director, also responsible for ‘The Mist’ and ‘The Green Mile’, another excellent prison drama). Despite its fantastic reviews and no less than seven Oscar nominations, it ended the 1995 gala completely empty. This does not prevent it from being considered one of the best movies in history.
And Kevin Costner was one of the names that sounded out to be the lead. Although the role of Andy Dufresne eventually went to Tim Robbins, he was by no means the first choice. Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage, Johnny Depp or Charlie Sheen were some of the names that were considered to play Dufresne, as well as Tom Hanks. Hanks turned down the role as he was involved in another project, ‘Forrest Gump’, whose success led to the conclusion that he didn’t make the wrong choice either. And in fact, Costner also gave a negative answer in order to bet everything on ‘Waterworld’, a decision he would surely regret in the end.