Editing Steve McQueen (section)

===Missed roles===
McQueen was offered the lead male role in ''[[Breakfast at Tiffany's (film)|Breakfast at Tiffany's]]'', but was unable to accept due to his ''Wanted: Dead or Alive'' contract (the role went to [[George Peppard]]).<ref name="Terrill 1993" /><ref name="JonesM-MS-1994-03-19">Jones Meg. – "McQueen Biography Is Portrait of a Rebel". – ''[[Milwaukee Sentinel]]''. – March 19, 1994.</ref> He turned down parts in ''[[Ocean's 11]]'',<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rahner |first=Mark |date=June 12, 2005 |title=New DVD collections remind us why McQueen was the King of Cool |url=https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/new-dvd-collections-remind-us-why-mcqueen-was-the-king-of-cool/ |access-date=August 19, 2020 |website=The Seattle Times |archive-date=October 21, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201021083836/https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/new-dvd-collections-remind-us-why-mcqueen-was-the-king-of-cool/ |url-status=live }}</ref> ''[[Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid]]'' (his attorneys and agents could not agree with Paul Newman's attorneys and agents on top billing),<ref name="Terrill 1993" /><ref name="JonesM-MS-1994-03-19" /> ''[[The Driver]]'',<ref>{{cite news |last=Burger |first=Mark |title=Walter Hill Crime Story from 1978 Led the Way in its Genre |newspaper=[[Winston-Salem Journal]] |date=June 9, 2005 }}</ref><ref>French, Philip. – Review: "DVD club: No 44 The Driver". – ''[[The Observer]]'' – November 5, 2006.</ref> ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'',<ref name="Nolan 1984" />{{Rp|172}} ''[[California Split]]'',<ref>Shields, Mel. – "Elliott Gould has had quite a career to joke about". – ''[[The Sacramento Bee]]''. – October 27, 2002.</ref> ''[[Dirty Harry]]'', ''[[A Bridge Too Far (film)|A Bridge Too Far]]'', ''[[The French Connection (film)|The French Connection]]'' (he did not want to do another cop film),<ref name="Terrill 1993" /><ref name="JonesM-MS-1994-03-19" /> ''[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]'' and ''[[Sorcerer (film)|Sorcerer]]''.

According to director [[John Frankenheimer]] and actor [[James Garner]] in bonus interviews for the DVD of the film ''[[Grand Prix (1966 film)|Grand Prix]]'', McQueen was Frankenheimer's first choice for the lead role of American Formula One race car driver Pete Aron. Frankenheimer was unable to meet with McQueen to offer him the role, so he sent [[Edward Lewis (producer)|Edward Lewis]], his business partner and the producer of ''Grand Prix''. McQueen and Lewis instantly clashed, the meeting was a disaster, and the role went to Garner.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}

Later, in an interview, Garner said:

{{blockquote|Oh, McQueen. Crazy McQueen. McQueen and I got along pretty good. McQueen looked at me kind of like an older brother, and he didn't want to have much to do with me, till he got in trouble, then he'd call. He knew he could trust me to tell him just what I thought. A lot of people wouldn't do that. And then we had... it wasn't a falling out... as I did Grand Prix, Steve was originally slated to do that movie, but he couldn't get along with Frankenheimer. So that lasted about thirty minutes, and Steve was out, and I was in. And Steve went over to do Sand Pebbles, which went about a year longer than they wanted to go. Big production, spent a lot of money and stayed over in [Taiwan] too long. So, when I got the part in Grand Prix, I called him, in Taiwan. and I said, "Steve, I want to tell you, before you hear it from somebody else, that I'm going to do Grand Prix." Well, there was about a twenty dollar silence there, on the telephone. He didn't know what to say, and finally said "Oh, that's great, great, I'm glad to hear it." Because, he planned to do Le Mans, which was another title at the time, but we were going to be out, and Grand Prix released before he ever even got to that film. But he said, "Great, great, well, I'm glad to hear it; that's good. You know, if anybody's gonna do it, I'm glad, you're doin' it."

He didn't talk to me for about a year and half, and we were next-door neighbors, so it did get to him a little bit. Finally, his son, Chad, made him take him to go see Grand Prix. And from that time on, we were talking again. But Steve was a wild kid. He didn't know where he wanted to be or what he wanted to do.<ref>{{cite AV media |title=James Garner discusses Steve McQueen and 'Grand Prix' |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UIJbxskw1c |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/4UIJbxskw1c |archive-date=December 11, 2021 |url-status=live |access-date=November 16, 2021 }}{{cbignore}}</ref>}}

Director [[Steven Spielberg]] said McQueen was his first choice for the character of Roy Neary in ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind''. According to Spielberg in a documentary on the film's DVD release, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer. Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue.<ref>, Clarke, Roger. – "The Independent: Close Encounters of the Third Kind 9 pm Film4". – ''[[The Independent]]''. – April 21, 2007.</ref><ref>Tucker, Reed, Isaac Guzman, and John Anderson. – "Cinema Paradiso: The True Story of an Incredible Year in Film". – ''[[New York Post]]''. – August 5, 2007.</ref> Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the story, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the script. The role eventually went to [[Richard Dreyfuss]].

[[William Friedkin]] wanted to cast McQueen as the lead in the action thriller film ''[[Sorcerer (film)|Sorcerer]]'' (1977). ''Sorcerer'' was to be filmed primarily on location in the Dominican Republic, but McQueen did not want to be separated from Ali MacGraw for the duration of the shoot. McQueen then asked Friedkin to let MacGraw act as a producer, so she could be present during principal photography. Friedkin would not agree to this condition, and cast [[Roy Scheider]] instead of McQueen. Friedkin later remarked that not casting McQueen hurt the film's performance at the box-office.

Spy novelist [[Jeremy Duns]] revealed that McQueen was considered for the lead role in a film adaptation of ''[[The Diamond Smugglers]]'', written by [[James Bond]] creator [[Ian Fleming]]. McQueen would play John Blaize, a secret agent gone undercover to infiltrate a diamond-smuggling ring in South Africa. There were complications with the project, which was eventually shelved, although a 1964 screenplay does exist.<ref>"From Johannesburg With Love", in ''The Sunday Times'', March 7, 2010.</ref>

McQueen and [[Barbra Streisand]] were tentatively cast in ''[[The Gauntlet (film)|The Gauntlet]]'' (1977), but the pair could not get along and both withdrew from the project<ref name="Eliot" />—though according to one biographer, they had briefly dated in 1971.<ref>{{cite book|first= Christopher|last=Andersen|title=Barbra: The Way She Is|year=2006|publisher= HarperCollins|isbn=9780061862519|page=[https://archive.org/details/barbrawaysheisande/page/206 206]}}</ref> The lead roles were filled by [[Clint Eastwood]] and [[Sondra Locke]].

McQueen expressed interest in the [[John Rambo|Rambo]] character in ''[[First Blood]]'' when [[David Morrell]]'s novel appeared in 1972, but the producers rejected him because of his age.<ref>Toppman, Lawrence. – "Will He or Won't He?". – ''[[The Charlotte Observer]]''. – May 22, 1988.</ref><ref>Morrell, David, Jay MacDonald. – "Writers find fame with franchises". ''[[The News-Press]]''. – March 2, 2003.</ref>

He was offered the title role in ''[[The Bodyguard (1992 film)|The Bodyguard]]'' (to star [[Diana Ross]]) when it was proposed in 1976, but the film did not reach production until years after McQueen's death; the film eventually starred [[Kevin Costner]] and [[Whitney Houston]] in 1992.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Beck |first1=Marilyn |first2=Stacy Jenel |last2=Smith |title=Costner Sings to Houston's Debut |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Daily News]] |date=October 7, 1991 }}</ref>

''[[Quigley Down Under]]'' was in development as early as 1974, with McQueen in consideration for the lead, but by the time production began in 1980, McQueen was ill. The project was scrapped until a decade later, when [[Tom Selleck]] starred.<ref>Persico Newhouse, Joyce J. – "'Perfect Hero' Selleck Takes Aim at Action". – ''[[Times Union (Albany)|Times Union]]''. – October 18, 1990.</ref>