Will Arnett Was Fired From Playing An Iconic Character Due To A Sponsorship Deal

Will Arnett is a name is guaranteed to come up whenever great comedians and voice acting talents of his generation are discussed. However, his level of skill doesn't mean that he's guaranteed to get the role he wants every single time. Indeed, while Arnett is a major name who's known for his roles as Gob Bluth on "Arrested Development" and Vernon Fenwick in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows" (among many others) he has missed playing at least one downright iconic character ... though admittedly through no artistic fault of his own, and after he had already technically performed the role. 

In 2008, NBC was working on a reboot TV movie of the iconic 1980s show "Knight Rider," with future "Grey's Anatomy" and "Sweet Magnolias" star Justin Broening replacing David Hasselhoff as the show's central human star and Arnett voicing the show's iteration of the talking car K.I.T.T. (voiced in the original show by "St. Elsewhere" and "Boy Meets World" star William Daniels). Arnett had already completed his work when trouble loomed on the not-so-distant horizon: Mere weeks before the air date, General Motors became aware of Arnett's "Knight Rider" job, and didn't particularly love the fact that someone with a years-long voice acting gig in their GMC Trucks ads was now playing a talking Ford Mustang. This conflict of interest forced Arnett to leave the show.     

There's a silver lining, however. While it would have been interesting to see (or rather, hear) Arnett's take on K.I.T.T., his departure from the project led to one of the most fascinating last-minute recasting decisions out there when none other than Val Kilmer replaced Arnett as the voice of K.I.T.T.  

Thanks to the conflict of interest between his "Knight Rider" and GMC Trucks voice work, Will Arnett was indeed left with little choice, despite liking the K.I.T.T. gig quite a bit. As he said at the time (via Variety):

 "I was very excited at the prospect of playing the part of K.I.T.T. in the new 'Knight Rider' movie. However, because of a long relationship with General Motors as the voice of GMC Trucks, I had to respectfully withdraw from the project."

Despite this career hiccup, few people can say that Arnett's voice acting career took a serious hit when he missed out on the role of K.I.T.T. He remains one of the most in-demand voices in the industry, being capable of both an iconic, expressive growl (as seen in his role as Batman in "The Lego Movie" film series) and nuanced, emotionally demanding roles (like voicing the title character in every season of Netflix's stellar "BoJack Horseman"). He can even do co-op, providing the voice of the "Twisted Metal" killer clown Sweet Tooth while pro wrestler Samoa Joe physically portrays the character. In other words, K.I.T.T. might have been a fine addition to his CV, but Arnett's professional fortunes definitely didn't hinge on the role.

The 2008 reboot of "Knight Rider," on the other hand, didn't fare quite as well. While the movie fulfilled its intended purpose and spawned a new "Knight Rider" TV show (on which Kilmer continued to voice the car, but remained uncredited), the reboot series wasn't a huge success and ended after just one season.