Hollywood Trivia that Exposes the Utter Incompetence of the Studio Suits in Charge

Everybody loves a little movie trivia that illuminates the utterly depthless stupidity of Hollywood studio executives right? The only people in the entertainment business who should have less power over the entertainment choices Americans are given are the weasels in the music business. But even some of the whoppers about their dunderheaded decisions pale in comparison to the absurdity of those Perrier-drinking, coke-snorting imbeciles most responsible for the dreck that has taken over silver screens across the country.

Hey, wouldn't Dustin Hoffman and Gary Coleman be great as brothers!

Gotta admit, I'm not a big fan of Rain Man. But apparently most people are. Did you know that the roles were originally reversed? Tom Cruise was to play the idiot savant. Why not, he's halfway there already. Dustin Hoffman, one of the shrewdest-and best-actors in Hollywood history quickly saw that the rain man was the ticket to Oscar glory and at that time Hoffman had the edge in clout. Especially since Cruise was desperate to be taken seriously.

One of the legendary stories about Rain Man, and there are a lot of them, is that one of the writers pointed out that Tom Cruise was roughly two decades too young to play Hoffman's brother as the script indicated. That writer was subsequently fired. But that was hardly the end of the problems on this movie. A veritable parade of famous directors were approached after Martin Brest left, including Steven Spielberg and Sydney Pollack. Pollack was still recovering from working with Hoffman on Tootsie and ran screaming from the idea. He might well have been brought in had Hoffman followed through with his later desire to opt out of the film, telling producers that Richard Dreyfuss was the man for the role.

You know who I think would be good for this role...

Try to get your head around the reasons some studio exec decided to send these roles to these actors.

-Doris Day as Mr. Robinson in The Graduate. She passed on the reason that the movie was "reprehensible."

-James Caan as Rocky Balboa. Yeah, why not cast a guy who is actually good looking and articulate as a Neanderthal boxer?