Talk about hindsight being 20/20. Sean Connery, as we all have known, was the first actor offered the role of Gandalf in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. He was offered $10 million per movie and yet he turned it down because he “didn’t understand the script”. For $10 million, I would recite dialogue in Swahili. That is a ton of money.
But, apparently the $10 million was not the final offer. Celebrity NetWorth reports that Connery was also offered 15% of the gross for all three LORD OF THE RINGS movies. Those films have grossed three billion dollars to date. That means in total, Sean Connery could have made $450 million dollars! That doesn’t even include if he had returned for THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY and the upcoming sequels.
$450 million!
I am pretty sure that Ian McKellan did not get that deal, otherwise we would have heard about it. But can you imagine passing up that much money because you didn’t get the movie? This is the man who starred in THE AVENGERS and THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN. I am pretty sure he could have winged it.
Good choice, Mr. Connery.
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