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Picture $30M per film and 15% of The Lord of the Rings box-office haul. But guess what? Connery turned it down, and that missed chance cost him about $450M. That’s not chump change!
So what was Connery’s big reason for passing on playing Gandalf? Simply put, he didn’t get it. He famously said, “I read the book. I read the script. I saw the movie. I still don’t understand it.” Yep, the wizardry of Middle-earth was just too mystical for him. Instead of battling Sauron, he chose to be in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), which, let’s be honest, didn’t exactly break any box office records—more like shattered them in a bad way, losing $12 million.
Enter Ian McKellen, who took up the wizardly mantle and basically became Gandalf for a generation. His take on the character? Pure magic. The trilogy went on to make nearly $3 billion, and McKellen’s Gandalf became legendary. Meanwhile, Connery’s Gandalf-less path led him to other roles, including a cameo in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier—where the alien phrase “Sha Ka Ree” was a nod to him.
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