Mark Wahlberg will soon experience a new cinema adventure in Arthur the Great. He is a seasoned blockbuster star who can successfully carry films on his own. If we travel back 20 years, things look a little different. At that time, the ex-rapper was on his way to the top of the film business. Maybe that’s why he came up with his creative idea for the Lead role in the science fiction film Donnie Darko insisted. In any case, director Richard Kelly couldn’t do anything with it.
That’s why Mark Wahlberg rejected the sci-fi cult film Donnie Darko
In the end, Jake Gyllenhaal played the lead role of 17-year-old Donnie Darko, who is plagued by visions of the end of the world. Before that, several better-known stars were in discussion. For example, the producers wanted Vince Vaughn, as Richard Kelly confirmed in an interview (via Scotts). He declined because he felt too old for the role. But Mark Wahlberg, who was a year younger, had a different reason. Kelly explained it like this:
Mark Wahlberg was in talks to play Donnie. He liked the script and the role. The big problem was that Mark Donnie with a lisp wanted to play.
The director further revealed:
Why? I don’t know that exactly either. But he insisted pretty strongly, and that ultimately prevented the deal from happening. Why the reason is stupid and Wahlberg still made the right decision
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Donnie Darko
Unfortunately, we’re missing Mark Wahlberg’s justification for his desire to play Donnie with a speech impediment. From the outside, it seems stupid, to say the least, to turn down a role because you want to graft onto it a quality that will make you stand out as an actor.
But it fits with Wahlberg’s career phase at the time. The later action star was in the late 1990s and early 2000s more adventurous in his choice of roles than today. He wanted to prove himself as an actor and filmed with directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights), David O. Russell (Three Kings) and James Gray (The Yards).
For Donnie Darko, his rejection was a blessing. Instead of casting an almost 30-year-old in the role of a student, the then 20-year-old Jake Gyllenhaal got the job. Donnie Darko failed at the box office, but became a cult film. For Gyllenhaal it was an important step towards his Hollywood breakthrough, which came a year later with Moonlight Mile. Mark Wahlberg, however, needed a while to discover his niche in Hollywood. And that has little to do with independent brain teasers.
Podcast for Netflix’s epic sci-fi series 3 Body Problem
Have the Game of Thrones makers achieved their next big success with 3 Body Problem? In the podcast we discussed Netflix’s sci-fi series extensively and without spoilers:
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3 Body Problem is the adaptation of one of the most exciting science fiction works of recent years: The Trisolaris trilogy by Chinese author Cixin Liu. In the podcast we clarify whether the series can delight sci-fi fans and whether the drastic changes to the original were really necessary.
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