Will Smith could have played Keanu Reeves' role of Neo in "The Matrix," but he turned it down. The actor explained he was baffled by director Lana and Lilly Wachowski's pitch, which failed to convey how groundbreaking the movie would be.
I wonder what the pitch was, it seems obvious having seen the film at the time that it was miles ahead of other mainstream blockbusters, but I guess it's not automatically easy to convey that. A good concept, but the realisation of it, the visuals, the cool, all wouldn't have been there to help. At the time of the pitch, Smith would have been riding high after two massive hits, Independence Day and Men In Black, had proven him as a mainstream movie star able to carry a sci fi blockbuster. You can imagine he was fielding loads of sci fi movie scripts all hoping to do the same. To that end, it's not so surprising that Smith passed on something that didn't seem overwhelmingly convincing, or that he'd maybe fear becoming type cast.
Apparently Val Kilmer was going to be Morpheus if Smith had wanted to be Neo.
Just thinking about those movies has made me think about how many great films there were back then. Before superhero slop took over the multiplexes.