Keitel was cast as Captain Willard and had already started filming in the Philippines when Coppola decided after just one week that his interpretation of the character wasn't working. The director felt Keitel was playing Willard too actively when the role called for someone more passive and inward, and flew to Los Angeles to personally ask Martin Sheen to take over. Everything Keitel filmed was scrapped, Sheen stepped in and delivered one of the most iconic performances of the decade, and Keitel walked away with nothing on screen to show for his time in the jungle. | © Paramount Pictures
Stallone was Paramount's first choice to play Axel Foley, but his vision for the film and the studio's were about as far apart as two people could get. He rewrote the script to strip out all the comedy and replace it with heavy action, which Paramount decided was too expensive and too far from what they wanted. He walked away two weeks before production started, took his rewrite, turned it into Cobra, and watched Eddie Murphy make one of the biggest comedies of the decade with the role he left behind. | © Paramount Pictures
Smith was expected to reprise his role in the 2016 sequel but walked away after salary negotiations with Fox collapsed over his reported $50 million asking price. The studio wrote his character out as having died between films and pressed ahead without him. The sequel underperformed badly enough to kill the planned third movie, which made the decision to skip the paycheck look pretty costly in hindsight. | © 20th Century Fox
Costner was cast as Alex, a character who is already dead when the film begins, which meant his role was largely limited to a few flashback scenes that ended up being cut from the final edit. His most visible contribution to the finished film is a brief shot of his body in the morgue, which is not exactly the kind of screen time that launches a career. He was paid for the role regardless, and went on to become one of the biggest stars of the 1980s without anyone needing to see his face in that particular movie. | © Columbia Pictures
Cage was cast as Superman in Tim Burton's ambitious and famously troubled production, got fitted for the suit, took the promotional photos, and then watched the whole project collapse before a single frame of actual filming took place. The reasons were many, from ballooning budgets to creative disagreements, and the film has since become one of Hollywood's most legendary never-made movies. Cage never played the role, but he reportedly walked away with $20 million anyway, which softens the blow considerably. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Stoltz spent six weeks filming as Marty McFly before director Robert Zemeckis made the difficult call to recast the role with Michael J. Fox. The problem wasn't Stoltz's ability as an actor, but his instinct to play the character with a darker, more serious tone that didn't match the film's energy. The studio ended up paying both actors for their work, making it one of the more expensive recasting decisions in Hollywood history, though given how the film turned out, few would argue it wasn't worth it. | © Universal Pictures
Ford filmed a cameo as the school principal who reprimands Elliott, a small appearance that made sense given his close friendship with Spielberg and the fact that his then-wife, Melissa Mathison, had written the screenplay. The scene was cut before the film reached its final form, meaning one of the biggest stars in Hollywood quietly disappeared from one of the most beloved films ever made. How much he was paid for it has never been confirmed, but given where his career was in 1982, it almost certainly wasn't a small number. | © Universal Pictures
Maguire was originally cast in the film but was replaced by Rafe Spall before shooting got underway, with director Ang Lee citing a desire to keep the cast entirely international and avoid having a recognizable Hollywood face pull audiences out of the story. It was an unusual reason to lose a role, being essentially too famous for the part rather than wrong for it. Maguire never appeared in the finished film, but was compensated for his time regardless. | © 20th Century Fox
Roth has been a Tarantino regular going all the way back to Reservoir Dogs in 1992, so landing a role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood felt like a natural continuation of that working relationship. He filmed his scenes as a British butler, but Tarantino cut them before the film reached its final form. The scenes never made it to theaters, though Roth collected his paycheck all the same. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
Depp had filmed just one scene as Gellert Grindelwald before Warner Bros. asked him to step down from the role following his highly publicized legal dispute with Amber Heard. Mads Mikkelsen was brought in to take over the character for the rest of the film. Thanks to the terms of his contract, Depp walked away with his full $16 million salary for a single scene that never made it to audiences. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Rudd was cast as the protagonist's blind date in the 2011 comedy and actually filmed a scene for the role. The footage didn't make it into the final cut, leaving his contribution on the editing room floor along with whatever chemistry he brought to the part. The scene has never been released, but Rudd got paid regardless, which is a pretty painless way to not be in one of the biggest comedies of that year. | © Universal Studios
Woodley was cast as Mary Jane Watson and actually showed up on set, shooting three scenes before the production decided to cut the character from the film entirely in post. The reasoning at the time was that the story was already crowded enough without adding another major character to the mix. She never appeared on screen, but she did get paid, and fans spent years curious about footage that has never officially surfaced. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
Spacey had already completed filming on his role as J. Paul Getty when sexual misconduct allegations against him prompted director Ridley Scott to make the extraordinary decision to recast the part entirely. Christopher Plummer stepped in and reshot all of Spacey's scenes in just nine days, with the film releasing on schedule. Spacey had fulfilled his contractual obligations before any of that happened, so he collected his full fee for a performance that no one ever got to see. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
Before Robert De Niro was confirmed to play Al Capone in Brian De Palma's 1987 crime film, Hoskins was lined up as a backup in case De Niro fell through. De Niro committed to the role, Hoskins moved on, and that seemed to be the end of it. Then a check for $200,000 arrived in the mail with a note from De Palma that simply read "Thanks for your time. Love, Brian," which is probably the best way anyone has ever been paid for doing absolutely nothing. | © Paramount Pictures
Biehn's character Hicks is killed off at the start of Alien 3, which meant there was no role for the actor himself in the film. Director David Fincher still needed a usable shot of the character, so a facial cast was made and filmed with another actor standing in. Biehn was never on set, never acted in the film, and still walked away with a significant payday for the use of his likeness. | © 20th Century Studios
Hollywood contracts can be a beautiful thing, especially when they guarantee a paycheck regardless of whether the camera ever actually points at you. These 15 actors got paid for movies they never appeared in, for reasons ranging from creative differences to studio politics to plain bad luck.
