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The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

After the first Harry Potter movie came out, I decided to come up with the world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter. (Because as we all know, foreign movies don't do well in the States; they have to be remade with an American cast.) It's not so much a dream cast as maybe a nightmare. Some of the choices are inspired; others are inspired lunacy.

Gryffindor House
Harry Potter: Adam Sandler
 Ron Weasley: Ron Howard

(Backup: David Caruso)
Hermione Granger: Debra Messing
 Ginny Weasley: Molly Ringwald
Neville Longbottom: Drew Carey
Ravenclaw House
Cho Chang: Lucy Liu
 
Hufflepuff House
Cedric Diggory: Ted Raimi
Slytherin House
Draco Malfoy: Ricky Schroeder
 Crabbe: Matt Damon
Goyle: Ben Affleck
Hogwarts Staff
Dumbledore: Jack Klugman
 McGonagall: Angela Lansbury
Snape: Keanu Reeves
 Hagrid: Mr. T
Quirrel: Greg Proops
 Lupin: George Clooney
Gilderoy Lockhart: William Shatner
 Trelawney: Julia Roberts
Madam Pince: Christine Baranski
 Flitwick: Danny DeVito
Other Students
Fleur Delacour: Reese Witherspoon
 Viktor Krum: Luke Perry

(Backup: Matthew Perry)
Harry's Family
James Potter: Michael Richards
 Lily Potter: Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Sirius Black: Viggo Mortensen
Vernon Dursley: George Wendt
 Petunia Dursley: Amy Sedaris
Dudley Dursley: Abraham Benrubi
The Dark Side
Lucius Malfoy: Phil Donahue
 Peter Pettigrew: Gilbert Gottfried
You-Know-Who: Leslie Nielsen
Published Tuesday, November 22, 2005 7:00 AM by oldnewthing
Filed under:

Comments

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 10:37 AM by Bill
A few good chuckles, then I burst out laughing at Shatner. Thanks.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 10:40 AM by Heinz
LOL Very nice! But Raymond, is that hotlinking I see?

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:13 AM by Neil
Heinz, that's called leeching, and at least two of the sites are actively blocking it (although I have leeching disabled on my browser by default, so I had to enable it to see the other images).

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:26 AM by Richard Avila
I guess the blog software doesn't allow Raymond to upload images.

Nice choices, by the way. :]

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:29 AM by Trey Van Riper
I was surprised to learn that Viggo Mortensen is from New York. I had thought he was from New Zealand.

The only one of these that I noticed is not from the United States is William Shatner. However, he's still an American, as he's from Quebec.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:31 AM by Trey Van Riper
Oops! I found one...

Angela Lansbury is from London, England, not the Americas.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 1:55 PM by Andrew Lim
LOL @ your choice for Voldermorte.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 2:35 PM by waleri
You've got Ron Weasley right, I'll tell you that :)

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 2:45 PM by PatriotB
Hahaha. Too funny. :) Especially since I just saw HP4 last night.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 2:49 PM by oldnewthing
I said "the American version of HP" not "the version of HP starring only Americans". My rule was that I had to choose people who were well-known in the States.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 3:34 PM by Lanny Heidbreder
Gilbert Gottfried as Wormtail: <em>genius.</em>

And Viggo Mortensen is who I've had in my head as Sirius Black since I first read Prisoner of Azkaban. My HP-crazed girlfriend thinks I'm insane. After this post, I'm not sure she's wrong.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 4:35 PM by Vorn
If I were casting it, I WOULD use Shatner. I think he'd take to the part like a duck to water. :)

Vorn

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 6:35 PM by Helpful Tip
Raymond, leeching (displaying images that you are not hosting) is both rude (because you are running up someone else's bandwidth bill) and reckless (because the people hosting the images can replace them with whatever they want).

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 7:51 PM by LarryOsterman
Personally I think that Mrs. Lovett would make an AWESOME Professor McGonagll.

Americans seem to believe that Angela Lansbury is only the Murder She Wrote lady, without realizing all the other amazing roles she's played.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:26 PM by LarryOsterman
Btw, Valorie disagrees with me on the McGonagall thingy, she thinks Angela would make a better Sprout.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 1:47 AM by wes
Harry Potter?

# Abraham Benrubi?

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 3:44 AM by Francis
Not that I dislike him (I absolutely loved "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" when it was on) but are you sure he's got the "most Americans would know him" cred that the rest of your stars do?

# Why you don't want to link to someone else's images

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 11:13 AM by Mike Swaim
They might change them.

http://blog.unitedheroes.net/archives/p/1453/

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 12:03 PM by Doug Harrison
>Personally I think that Mrs. Lovett would make an AWESOME Professor McGonagll.

Americans seem to believe that Angela Lansbury is only the Murder She Wrote lady, without realizing all the other amazing roles she's played.<

How true that is. You could also say the same about the principals and/or guests in most any episode of Law & Order, through which Sweeney himself and at least two Mrs. Lovetts have passed. Attend the tale... (especially the more recent "in concert" recording)

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 3:23 PM by Chris Robinson
You have a few here that aren't Americans, or at least weren't born in the US. Leslie Nielson, William Shatner, Keanu Reeves were Canadian at one point or another. There are probably others here that don't fit. I guess close enough.

# Um...

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 4:03 PM by Maurits
But Dudley is supposed to be blond...
(Oh, never mind)

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 4:17 PM by oldnewthing
I agree that Abraham Benrubi is not as well-known as the others but (1) I like his work, and (2) I was desperate. If Dudley has to be blonde, then may I suggest as an alternative: Madonna.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Thursday, November 24, 2005 2:19 AM by tricey
OMG!!! Reeves as Snape!!!!!!!! Arrgghhh!!1 too funny!!!!

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Thursday, November 24, 2005 5:15 AM by Whisper Elmwood
William Shatner as Gilderoy Lockhart is inspired to say the least... *lol*

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Thursday, November 24, 2005 6:21 AM by Jack Vickeridge
Lucy Lui! That's just wonderful.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Thursday, November 24, 2005 7:52 AM by Big Billy Boy
Fun images at mugshots.org.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Thursday, November 24, 2005 9:10 AM by Dan Sylveste
There's nothing wrong with linking to images that aren't hosted locally. You're not 'running up' their bandwidth bill anywhere more than you would be if you linked to their site directly and assumed a reasonable proportion of users clicked the link, for one - and secondarily it's a second's work to enable referrer-validation therefore it's a reasonable assumption to make that if there is no referrer validation, it's okay to use and link to the images.

Remember when hyperlinks were all about 'the freedom' of the internet and about 'distributed content' and 'sharing' and now they're just an excuse for people to bitch and go 'me me me my bandwidth?'

Perhaps just remotely replicating an entire site is a bit rude but as most of those images come from different sites, there's no problem unless you are mad.

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Friday, November 25, 2005 1:36 AM by Chris Maddocks
I think this is spectacular. You may have a second career as a casting director ahead of you!

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Friday, November 25, 2005 2:59 AM by :: Wendy ::
But what are Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Merryl Streep, Jack Nicolson and Robert Di Niro going to do? Surely we should at least approach them for roles?
PLEASE.

Clint Eastwood would be my choice for Dumbledoor.

Perhaps Quentin Tarrentino aas director.

oooh
can we recast some more films pleaee, this was FUN

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Friday, November 25, 2005 1:21 PM by Scott Tringali
Let's not forget:

Screenplay by George Lucas
Directed by Richard Linklater
Music by Marc Shaiman
Songs by Elton John
Choreography by Susan Stroman (for the all-new musical numbers!)
Executive Producer: Michael Jackson
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures

# re: The world's worst celebrity recasting of the American version of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 29, 2005 2:17 PM by beti
what?? matt and ben crabble & Goyle? what are you thinking!!

# Separated at birth: The Windows XP SP2 launch team

Tuesday, October 31, 2006 10:00 AM by The Old New Thing

Maybe, maybe not.

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