Today in particularly egregious missed opportunities, the casting director for cult classic The Craft has revealed Angelina Jolie almost starred in the movie. In the film’s oral history for EW, Pam Dixon says that in terms of big-name teen stars of that era, Neve Campbell topped the list because of her Party of Five fame, but there were other rising actresses who auditioned and nearly got the part. Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, and Alicia Silverstone all tested, but in the end, Campbell “came in and she was really, really good.†To think, Hollywood could’ve cast resident weirdest of the weirdos Angelina Jolie as a vampy immoral witch, just like in your dreams! Did she forget to wear a vile of blood? Did Fairuza Balk plant a curse? We demand answers.
As it turns out, fans were also not the only ones to pick up on the overt similarities between The Craft and Charmed, which debuted two years after the film. Director Andrew Fleming says the cover of The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now?†heard in the film, which then became the Charmed theme, was actually his idea. “I wrote a pilot of The Craft for Fox. The WB wanted to take it and Fox wouldn’t let it go. And then the next year, Charmed came out,†Fleming says. Robin Tunney, who starred in the film, says the show wouldn’t exist had it not been for The Craft: “Charmed is a rip-off of The Craft. It was completely obvious to the point that people would think I was on Charmed for years after.â€
Even so, the original still gets its due. According to Tunney, Natalie Portman once brought The Craft as her guilty-pleasure movie to a bachelorette party, asking the room of her choice: “Is this flattering or insulting?†There is no wrong answer, only wrong castings.