Director Dean Parisot’s sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest is an insanely fun, crazy, and hilarious movie! I watch it often, and every time I watch it I laugh my ass off. It’s just so damn good. Parisot did a wonderful job directing this movie, but he wasn’t the one who was originally attached as the director.
Harold Ramis, whose directing credits include Caddyshack, National Lampoon's Vacation, and Groundhog Day was set to helm. But, apparently, he had some major issues casting the film, and that eventually led to him departing the project.
Parisot was in the running to direct it early on, but the studio didn’t want him due to his lack of experience. At the time he had mostly worked in TV, and the 1998 Drew Barrymore film Home Fries. He worked on that film with producer Mark Johnson, and Johnson was the producer of Galaxy Quest.
During an interview with MTV, Parisot talked about initially trying to get the Galaxy Quest gig saying: "Mark and I loved working together, but the studio wasn't ready to hire a guy who had only done a small independent movie.” So, they brought Raimis in to take it on.
When talking about Ramis and why he ended up dropping out of the project, Parisot explained that it was because the studios wanted Tim Allen to star in the movie, but Ramis didn’t like that idea. He said: “The studio wanted Tim Allen to do it, but Harold didn't want to do it with Tim. At least, I believe that's the story.”
Mark Johnson went on to explain: "Harold didn't do the movie because we couldn't cast it. The people we went to all turned it down, and by the time we got to Tim Allen, Harold couldn't see it. To Harold's benefit and credit, when he eventually saw the movie, all he kept saying was how wrong he'd been."
What’s crazy is the casting for this movie was perfect! On top of Tim Allen, it starred Alan Rickman as Alexander Dane, Sigourney Weaver as Gwen DeMarco, Tony Shalhoub as Fred Kwan, Sam Rockwell as Guy Fleegman, Daryl Mitchell as Tommy Webber, and more. It’s hard to imagine anyone else in this cast!
Some of the other actors that were approached for the film included Alec Baldwin and Kevin Kline as Jason Nesmith. Steve Martin was even considered! It would have certainly been a different kind of movie had Ramis directed the film with one of those actors. In the end, though, the film turned out amazing, and Tim Allen was absolutely perfect for that role.
Via: /Film
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