I heard that in 1983, John Travolta had meetings with Al Pacino about being offered a part in "Scareface". Eventually, Travolta turned down the role, because he got the lead in "Staying Alive", better known as "Saturday Night Fever 2". Is this true?
FALSE! Think about what you heard, "Travolta got the lead in Saturday Night Fever 2" He is the lead, without Travolta they couldn't make Staying Alive.
sharewell obviously, but what about the "scarface" role. is that true? he would have played tony montana's assistant, manny ribera.
shareNot True. Here's how it went down.
American Gigolo - Travolta dropped out at the last minute because he did not feel comfortable with the role. Paramount Pictures let him out his contract but instead of owing Paramount one movie, Travolta owed paramount two movies, which seemed like a good deal at the time, had Travolta made the right choices.
Urban Cowboy - Travolta did Urban Cowboy for Paramount which left him one more movie that he owed the studio.
Blow Out - Still owing Paramount one more movie, the studio allowed him to do Blow Out for Orion.
An Officer and a Gentleman - Paramount wanted their second picture from John and they wanted it now. They wanted him for an Officer and a Gentleman however John, for whatever reason, didn't want to do it. Travolta's manager begged him to do the movie knowing how the studios could play hardball when they wanted to. John made a terrible career move by turning this movie down. This would have been the critical and box office hit to sustain his career for the 80's.
Scarface - Having just finished working with Brian De Palma in Blow Out and was very interested in being in Scarface. Paramount said NO!! You owe us a movie.
Staying Alive - Paramount had John right were they wanted him. The studio had wanted a sequel to Saturday Night Fever for years, however John had no intention of doing a sequel. Since John turned down An Officer a Gentleman, there was no way Paramount was going to let their "cash cow" do Scarface for Universal Studio. So based on his poor judgment, the truth of the matter is that Travolta was forced to do Staying Alive. Do to legal reasons, Travolta would not be able to do a movie until he gave Paramount their movie. Rumor has it that the original script was actually pretty good, however Travolta suggested Sylvester Stallone based on the fact that he loved Rocky III while he was on vacation in Hawaii during the summer of 1982. Once Stallone was brought in, he rewrote the script and it shows!! I like Sly, but he had no idea what he was doing when making this movie and he has even admitted to this in an interview on film!! And we know the rest of the story. Travolta's career went down the toilet for 10 years until his big comeback with Pulp Fiction in 1994.
Really interesting information. Thanks for sharing.
Travolta in Officer and a Gentleman would have different!
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