The original actor cast in Mark Wahlberg action movies are a genre unto themselves and have given the star some of his biggest hits. This includes Four Brothers, his two Transformers outings and 2007's Shooter, which has become a streaming hit on Netflix.

This thriller was based on the novel Point of Impact by author Stephen Hunter and cast Wahlberg as Bob Lee Swagger, a retired marine sniper. After being framed for an assassination, Swagger goes on the run to clear his name; this involves many gunfights and car chases too. This Antoine Fuqua movie was a modest success upon release and later spawned a TV series starring Ryan Phillippe.

Tommy Lee Jones Was Set To Play The Lead In Shooter

Shooter spent many years in development hell

Had Tommy Lee Jones' The Hunted been a bigger success, William Friedkin talked about retrofitting Shooter into a potential sequel.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Shooter spent a solid 12 years in development before it became the Walhberg movie. This involved paring the novel down to movie size, with writers like the legendary William Goldman (The Princess Bride) or John Lee Hancock (The Founder) trying to crack it. Before this, the late, great William Friedkin was set to direct Shooter with Tommy Lee Jones playing Swagger. A delay on the adaptation saw the duo move onto 2003's The Hunted instead.

Had this film been a bigger success, Friedkin told IGN of his plans to retrofit Shooter into a potential sequel. This didn't come to , with The Hunted only grossing $46 million worldwide on an estimated $55 million production budget (via Box Office Mojo). The Hunted itself could be described as First Blood meets The Fugitive, with Jones again playing the pursuer of a soldier he trained (played by Benicio del Toro) who goes on a killing spree. The difference is that Jones' Bonham is the total opposite of his Sam Gerard character in The Fugitive.

It's also hard to picture Jones in the Shooter movie that did get made. Presumably, Friedkin was envisioning a more cerebral, less action-intensive take on the material, with Jones' Swagger being a more internal, anti-social figure. In short, it's a very different movie, but considering Friedkin directed The French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A., it sounds like it could have been something special.

Tommy Lee Jones also worked with William Friedkin in the 2000 legal drama Rules of Engagement.

Jones Channeled His Take On Shooter's Swagger Into The Hunted

The Hunted is as close to Tommy Lee Jones' Shooter as the world will ever get

Friedkin noted in the aforementioned IGN chat that Jones recycled his planned portrayal of Swagger for The Hunted. While his character Bonham is shown to be a proficient killer with incredible hunting skills, he is also incredibly uncomfortable in regular society. This is best seen after del Toro's character is (briefly) captured, where Bonham can barely look Connie Nielsen's FBI agent in the eye or form coherent sentences when she attempts small talk.

Mark Wahlberg was almost cast as the younger version of Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K in Men in Black 3, but director Barry Sonnenfeld preferred Josh Brolin for the role.

This would make sense since both Shooter's Swagger and The Hunted's Bonham spent years isolating themselves from society and avoiding their pasts. Wahlberg's take on Swagger is still surprisingly chatty for all his years of hiding away and paranoid tendencies. Of course, Jones' take would be more alienating for a mainstream audience, so a studio might have insisted on the character being less of an introvert had the film entered production.

It Made More Sense For Tommy Lee Jones To Play Shooter's Lead Over Mark Wahlberg

Readers of the Bob Lee Swagger series weren't picturing Mark Wahlberg

Wahlberg was in his late 30s when he signed on to Shooter, but in Point of Impact, Swagger is a Vietnam vet who is closer to 50 in age. That's why many of the casting suggestions for the adaptation involved actors like Robert Redford or Clint Eastwood, with Swagger's Vietnam backstory featuring heavily in the narrative. Tommy Lee Jones was born in 1946 too, making him the same age as Swagger in the novels, and he would have been nearing 60 if the Friedkin version of Shooter had gone ahead.

It's interesting to note that in the span of five years the project went from a veteran star like Jones to a younger actor like Wahlberg. By all s, it was Wahlberg's pursuit of the project that saw it get a greenlight, while most of the book's subplots were dumped to streamline the script. This also would have made building a Bob Lee Swagger franchise easier, since Wahlberg's age would have given the studio more of a window to develop follow-ups.

Given Shooter's renewed success on Netflix, it would be ironic if a follow-up happened that played into Wahlberg's age. In fact, the star would be the perfect age to play a more book-accurate Swagger. With The Union and Uncharted, Wahlberg hasn't slowed down when it comes to more physical roles. It appears Shooter wasn't enough of a success in 2007 to push ahead with a sequel, but a straight-to-streaming follow-up now would be sure to generate interest.

Tommy Lee Jones' Shooter Would Have Flipped His Fugitive Casting

It definitely would have been more fun than U.S. Marshals anyway

... the Tommy Lee Jones version of Shooter would have flipped his Fugitive casting completely.

The movie that made Tommy Lee Jones a true movie star was The Fugitive, with his unforgettable turn as the determined U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard earning him an Academy Award. His performance was so compelling it was decided to spin off his character with U.S. Marshals, where Sam and his team chase a new fugitive played by Wesley Snipes. Sadly, this pseudo-sequel is something of a bore that fared badly when compared to The Fugitive, with co-star Robert Downey Jr dubbing U.S. Marshals "the worst action movie ever made."

What would have been cool about the Tommy Lee Jones version of Shooter is it would have flipped his Fugitive casting completely. It would have been his character on the run, and forced to clear his name by uncovering a conspiracy. This may have been why he was approached about the project too. While it may have been Friedkin's rough plan, it's tough to see how Jones' Hunted character would work in a Shooter sequel. For one, the 2003 film makes no mention of Bonham having been a sniper, let alone one of the best in the world.

Bonham is depicted as a knife fighter and survival expert, but never even holds a gun throughout The Hunted. It would have taken a sizable retcon to merge Swagger's story with Bonham's, so if the director and star had worked on Shooter, it likely would have had no connections with The Hunted. The box office disappointment of the latter no doubt killed plans for Friedkin's Shooter and the world was denied a Fugitive riff with Tommy Lee Jones on the run.

Source: The Los Angeles Times, IGN, Box Office Mojo