Regardless of whether or not he would have made a horde-ful of money if he'd taken the role, I'm glad he didn't. I can't help but think that Ian McKellan brought so much more range to the character.
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Blastr: Sean Connery would have earned HOW MUCH if he’d played Gandalf?
We’ve known for years that Sean Connery was offered the role of Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, but turned the role down because he didn’t understand the story. What we didn’t know u…
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I'm absolutely positive he in not kicking himself for not taking the role.
I suspect not. Though it would not be the oddest role he'd ever taken.
I’m trying but I can’t get myself to seriously believe Connery would have been even half as good as McKellan was.
I think, @Randy, it would have been a lot more difficult for him to not have been … well … Connery. His range isn’t that great, and he’s a strong, iconic actor. Not only would we have lost some of the remarkable nuances of McKellan’s performance (joy, sadness, strength, caring, rage, bewilderment, fear), but it would have been a _Sean Connery movie_. “The Lord of the Rings, starring Sean Connery.”
I don’t mind (most) Sean Connery movies, but it would have been horribly unfair to the source material.