The Sillly Hype That Nicholson and Connery Would Have Joined This Film

Clint Eastwood was well into his "survivor geezer" period back in 2000. Unforgiven had given him an Oscar and a "real" movie called In the Line of Fire had proven he could work well with others.

He was starting to do "little movies" and making the most of his fitness and reputation.

And then came Space Cowboys.

The idea was certainly nifty: Old Clint would go find three other old movie stars and together they would play a team of geezer astronauts reunited for the mission into space they never got.

With Eastwood in place -- as always, he was the man with the studio power -- word went out on who would play the other "old astronauts."

Jack Nicholson and Sean Connery. (With the fourth being slotted for ...who?)

Such balderdash this was.

Nicholson -- recently Oscared for As Good As It Gets...was still a legend of his own, bankable, established....he would simply not "fit" as Clint's co-star.

And Connery? A SCOTTISH US astronaut? What bendings might be necessary there?

In the end, the casting was far more realistic and comfortable...and welcome.

Donald Sutherland -- "Oddball the Hippie WWII warrior " from Eastwood's 1970 cult classic "Kelly's Heroes," and here playing the ladies man role that perhaps Nicholson MIGHT have gone for if this movie were important, which it wasn't.

James Garner -- Eastwood's TV/movie contemporary from the 50's and 60s, never as big a star as Clint but big enough and beloved enough on his own. (Garner, a heart bypass veteran, came off looking the most frail here; it was poignant.)

And...Tommy Lee Jones...in 2000, the more "standard" go-to character star guy; he didn't push for prestige like Nicholson or top stardom like Connery. He was too young for his part but....most competitive as bankable with Eastwood.

And so Space Cowboys ended up with a good cast, but hardly a historic cast. Eastwood kept up his "fitness stardom"(not so much a star as a force of strength) and 20 years later, he's still not done.