Clint Eastwood Rejected The Best War Movie Ever For A Surprising (But Fair) Reason

The film business is rife with tantalizing what-ifs. What if James Cameron had made "Spider-Man?" What if CBS hadn't exercised its "Magnum P.I." contract option on Tom Selleck and allowed Steven Spielberg to get his first choice for the role of Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark?" What if Sylvester Stallone had played Axel Foley in "Beverly Hills Cop?"

We've no idea if these alternate timeline possibilities would've worked out better than what we got, but it's fun to think about what might've been. These questions also remind us just how volatile studio projects can be. There's a huge element of luck that goes into every creative endeavor. You might think you've got a great director, a can't-miss script, and a murderer's row of a cast, but then you go and shoot the movie and you wind up with "Hook." There are no guarantees.

No one knows this better than Clint Eastwood. The star of the groundbreaking "Dollars Trilogy" and "Dirty Harry" has bet heavily on seemingly sure things only to watch the dice come up snake eyes. In 1984, he was paired with fellow superstar Burt Reynolds for the period cop comedy "City Heat," but the film played to crickets in theaters and got shredded by critics. Six years later, he teamed up with hot young star Charlie Sheen for the over-the-top action flick "The Rookie" and wound up making arguably the worst movie of his career.

Clearly, Eastwood should've said "no" to those two projects. But what about the time when he had the opportunity to make a massive war movie that some people think is the greatest film of all time, full stop?

In a 2015 interview with Stephen Galloway, Eastwood was asked about the time he turned down "Apocalypse Now." Eastwood was already in his 40s when director Francis Ford Coppola approached him to play, believe it or not, Captain Willard, the part that eventually went to Martin Sheen. I can't see it at all, but Coppola's creative instincts were not to be doubted at this time. After all, the man was coming off "The Godfather," "The Conversation," and "The Godfather Part II."

Eastwood couldn't see it either. As he told Galloway, "[I] said 'Gee, I don't know, I don't understand this show too much. I did read 'Heart of Darkness' when I was young, and so I kind of knew where it was going, but then I said, 'No, I don't think I can go off for that long a time.'" Coppola was planning to go for 16 weeks in the Philippines, but principal photography lasted 238 days. Imagine a director famous for bringing films in ahead of schedule and under budget thrust into this infamously chaotic production.

Amusingly, Eastwood also had to turn down Steve McQueen, who wanted to play Kurtz. According to Eastwood, "I said, 'Well, why do you want to play that?' He says 'Well, I get the same money, but I only have to work two weeks.'" Eastwood agreed that this was a good deal for McQueen before turning down the part for a second time. Is it possible that Eastwood would've given the best performance of his career in "Apocalypse Now?" Absolutely. I think it's more possible, however, that he would've killed Coppola, which means we'd never get the misunderstood masterpiece "One from the Heart" (though this would've spared us the horridness of "Jack").