Fan casting has become all the rage via social media platforms, particularly on Twitter, and it involves fans suggesting their favorites to take on popular roles in upcoming projects. This is especially popular in regards to comic book adaptations where you will see some fans create graphic art of their favorite actor or actress as the character in question. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt have long been fan-casted as Reed Richards and Sue Storm from the Fantastic 4. In Krasinski’s case, that became a reality in the alternate universe sequence of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Does fan-casting affect the real behind-the-scenes process? Marvel Studios casting director Sarah Finn offers her insight and reveals if fan desires influence any of their decisions.
During an appearance on the This Week in Marvel podcast, Finn talked about the pressure around fan-casting when it comes to the MCU. Finn says that while some of the fan-casting is fun to look at and the powers that be do want to give the fans what they want, they always must balance it with the story they are trying to tell. The casting director says that some fan-casting is done without knowing the direction of the project, and that makes some of their choices miss the mark a bit:
“I think that it affects us just in terms of always, it’s not like we already don’t show up wanting to do our best every day and hoping that we’re gonna get it right all the time, but I think if anything, we want so badly to make it work, make it fun, make everyone enjoy it, and be successful for the fans. So I think it just adds to that sense of pressure, responsibility, and passion… And then the fans, like you were saying, there are fan castings, there are fan expectations, and sometimes, that can be awesome and really fun to look at, but sometimes, people may not know that we’re actually heading in a really different direction here, so it’s not relevant, but we can’t really talk about that, but hopefully you’re gonna enjoy it, so there’s also things that we can’t share in the process. So what we’re hoping to do is create for the actors kind of a blank slate where they can come in with their instincts and just do their best work without having all of those external thoughts and pressures on them, and then we figure it out together.”
Fan-casting seems to be hitting an even higher fever pitch than ever before. Ryan Gosling has long been rumored to have discussed playing Nova in the MCU, something sparked by online fan-casting, and he just recently shot that rumor down but did say that he would like to take on the role of Ghost Rider in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Taron Egerton, long fan-casted to take on Logan/Wolverine after the departure of Hugh Jackman, recently said he had taken meetings with Marvel in the past, so that only made social media crave that casting even more. With San Diego Comic-Con approaching next week, more of these fan castings will likely hit social media as some fans think we MIGHT see some significant casting announcements during their panel at the highly anticipated event.
What are YOUR thoughts on fan-casting?