A Jon Hamm And Jeremy Renner Movie Almost Starred Jack Black And Will Ferrell Instead

The 2018 film "Tag" makes for a fun time. It's a movie about a group of fully-grown men who put their lives on pause for the sake of an intense game of Tag, AKA that game typically reserved for young children at recess. Deep down, the movie is actually about the characters' reluctance to confront the inevitable ravages of time, but that doesn't take away from how fun it is to see Tag be played by adults who now have the disposable income to make it interesting. Tag is one thing when confined to a playground; it's another thing when the person you're chasing can travel across the world. 

Besides its silly premise, "Tag" received a lot of attention at the time for its main cast, which featured Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner as two of the adult Tag players. In 2018, Renner was known largely for his serious roles in movies like "The Bourne Legacy" and for his serious-ish role in the "Avengers" films, which made it extra exciting to see him play a role that was full-on silly. Hamm's performance was even more interesting; audiences were used to him as the perpetually miserable Don Draper of "Mad Men," which made it delightful to see him play such an undignified role here. 

But in the original plan for the movie, neither Renner nor Hamm were supposed to star in it. In a 2013 announcement for the film's production, neither actors were mentioned; instead, Jack Black and Will Ferrell were attached to the project. 

It's easy to imagine Jack Black and Will Ferrell in this movie. It would've been especially funny to see Black play the guy in the group who's amazing at the game, dodging his friends' attacks with total ease. But even though there's no doubt he and Ferrell would've nailed it, Renner and Hamm still feel like the better choice overall. They're the less conventional picks, and their inclusion makes the whole movie feel more surprising and fresh.

Another major actor involved in the film would've been Tracy Morgan, who joined the cast alongside Ed Helms in 2016. While Helms stayed on to play Hoagie, Morgan soon dropped out. Much like with Ferrell and Black, there isn't a clear explanation for why Morgan left the project; the most likely case is that it was a simple scheduling conflict to blame. 

And although the movie may have been better off with Renner as a lead, Renner himself may have regretted the role after he suffered an injury on set. During one of the movie's many action sequences where his character fends off an attempted tag, Renner "fractured his right elbow and his left wrist," according to Variety. "That's how it goes," Renner said simply a the time. "It's part of the job."

Meanwhile, Hamm, who escaped the movie's action scenes with no serious injuries, spoke fondly of the film during its press tour, depicting the project as a welcome break from the hard-hitting AMC drama he'd spent nearly a decade leading. In one interview, Hamm mused about the action/comedy film, "There's some expression of joy that I think the movie really brings that is, I think really needed right now. Like it's ... there's no politics in this, there's no cynicism in it. It's just pure fun."