Mann Wanted Sandler For Collateral?

How odd is it to hear Michael Mann finally admit that Adam Sandler was set to become a co-lead in his movie “Collateral”?  That was long since the rumour, but as time went by and as Sandler’s career got even worse, people didn’t take it too seriously.

Instead, along with Sandler, Russell Crowe was the other co-lead instead of Tom Cruise. Talking about his upcoming cyber warfare thriller “Blackhat,” Mann tells THR:

“Nothing’s wrong with Adam Sandler, but it kinda envisioned a – it took place in New York, the Jamie Foxx was a badly written Jewish cab driver, with the kind of stereotypes that can only come from someone writing that kind of a character who’s foreign, who’s not American, that doesn’t live in New York.”

I think that Adam Sandler was less of a joke then than he is now, so perhaps at one point he was begging for a career rebirth and it seems almost got his wish.  The movie wasn’t one of Mann’s best anyhow.

Source: [THR]