Sean Connery Is The King of All Idiots

Cinematical has a kooky little story about Sean Connery. Turns out Connery was offered the role of Gandalf in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, and, hilariously, a 10 to 15 percent share of the films' income:

"Peter Jackson is quoted as saying that Rings executive producer Mark Ordesky told him "New Line was prepared to give him [Connery] between 10 percent and 15 percent of the films' income." Had that happened, Connery would have cashed more scratch for a single project than any actor in history.

The famously prickly Connery has gone on record saying that he wouldn't have taken the role of the big-hatted wizard because 'I never understood it. I read the book, I read the script, I saw the movie, and I still don't understand it.'"

I don't think "whoops" really covers how sheepish you should feel if you turn down 15 percent of the gross of the most profitable movie series of our generation. I think "whoops, I will now end my life with a hammer to the skull," is much more appropriate.

Personally, I think it's also fair to assume Sean hasn't really been present and accounted for mentally for about twenty years now. Furthermore, watching The Rock is a lot more entertaining if you believe that Sean didn't really even know a movie was being filmed. He was just having a really crazy couple of weeks, dude.