Mike Colter is now our Luke Cage, but in the early '90s, Quentin Tarantino wanted Man of Steel and Hannibal star Laurence Fishburne to take on the role of the Marvel superhero in a movie which would have come out shortly after Reservoir Dogs. The filmmaker even spoke with rights holder Ed Pressman about making Luke Cage a reality, but ended up taking the helm of Pulp Fiction instead. "In the case of Luke Cage, it was my comic geek friends that almost talked me out of it, because I thought Larry Fishburne back in the day would’ve been a great Luke Cage, and they were talking about Wesley Snipes," The Hateful Eight director said. "I could see them both, but it was like ‘I think Fish would be better.’ And they go ‘Yeah… he could work out and everything, but he doesn’t have the bod that Wesley Snipes has, and Luke Cage needs to have the bod.’"
To be fair, it's hard to imagine a comic book fan on the planet who would be against the idea of Snipes taking on the role of Luke Cage in the '90s, but it turns out that the studio's insistence on an actor with the right "bod" is what put him off and led to him deciding to ditch the idea of helming a superhero movie. "And I literally was so turned off that that would be their both starting and ending point, that it literally put it in my head that, if I do a comic book movie, it should be an original character. It should be something I create rather than try to fit in." Do you wish we'd got a Tarantino helmed Luke Cage movie? As always, let us know your thoughts in the usual place.
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