Replacing an actor

[Aspergers_Aspie]

Retiring the number of an athlete is an honour a team bestows upon a player, usually after the player has left the team, retires from the sport, or dies.
Some people say a classic film or song shouldn't be remade or covered.
Are these examples similar to Ben Whitehead replacing Peter Sallis on Wallace and Gromit?

 

[Judge]

That doesn't strike me as being a practical gesture. Retiring the number of a great athlete has no financial impact or consequences. It's just a gesture of sentiment for a particularly great player.

However retiring an actor's role in a particular film is another matter. Especially with those studios so hellbent on remaking great films, even when they usually generate far less revenue than the original film.

If it were up to the public, I can think of any number of films that should NEVER be remade again on general principle. But for the studios who control this equation, for them it's all about revenue first- with art coming a distant second.

One thing Hollywood seems to do these days I find so disconcerting, is to remake a great movie, only to star lower-paid relatively unknown actors in lead roles. A leap of faith, unless they are only interested in a modest, but predictable return on their investment.

 

[Finder]

While you retire the number, you don't stop playing either the sport or the position. Every team "interprets" the game in their own way. To say one particular team reaches a historical pinnacle where no other team can never exceed the performance would be false. That is the same in the arts. Every actor has a chance to reinterpret a role. Olivier's Hamlet was a classic. The Gibson version was not as good, but the Branagh version exceeded both. You never know when a great performance will appear.

 

[Gracey]

On reading this thread I think about DC comics, The Joker.

Jack Nicholson and more recently Jared Leto, Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger, amongst others.

For me, Heath Ledger nailed The Joker character when he 'just wanted to watch the world burn'
but each actor has contributed their interpretation of what The Joker is;
perhaps adding yet another layer,
in part satisfying a morbid curiosity over what drives The Joker to do what he does.

Wouldn't have been possible without so many attempts at playing the role.