Well, that didn’t take long after all. Just one week after Gerard Butler departed the upcoming Point Break remake, Alcon Entertainment has announced (via Coming Soon) that they have already found their replacement: Wrath of the Titans villain Edgar Ramirez will take over as the zen, extreme sports enthusiast bank robber Bodhi, a part originally played by Patrick Swayze in the beloved 1991 original.
It’s an intriguing decision. Gerard Butler is a pretty big name – not a guaranteed box office draw, but an actor familiar to genre fans the world over – and Edgar Ramirez is… not. He’s co-starred in some pretty major projects, including the acclaimed TV mini-series “Carlos the Jackal” and the Oscar-winning film Zero Dark Thirty (a film directed, coincidentally, but original Point Break filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow), but this film – and specifically this character – seems likely to introduce the actor to audiences the world over as a bona fide movie star.
These kinds of last minute casting changes sometimes lead to major breakthroughs: a then-unknown Matthew McConaughey replaced Woody Harrelson as the lead in A Time to Kill, resulting in his immediate ascension to Hollywood stardom. Hugh Jackman had only appeared in two small movies before he replaced Dougray Scott in the original X-Men, and now he’s one of the most recognizable actors on the planet.
Giving a major role in a potential blockbuster to a lesser known actor is a major opportunity. Let’s hope this Point Break remake is good enough to give Edgar Ramirez that leg up too.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
