Perhaps the most egregious case of "racial miscasting" comes from M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender (2010). The most noticeable demographic absence in cinema is the lack of roles for Asian actors. For this reason, many people were upset when the casting for The Last Airbender was announced. The source material (Nickelodean's Avatar: The Last Airbender) has very clear East Asian and Native American influences, and the characters of the show are widely regarded as members of these cultures. In spite of this, an all-white cast was selected to play the films protagonists, and only dark-skinned, Asian actors were cast as members of the Fire Nation, the film's villains. In addition to the casting, which was panned by fans and critics alike, the film received overwhelmingly negative reviews, earning a 6% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Nickelodean's Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008)
The Last Airbender (2010)
Questionable Casting
Can Female and Minority Leads Find an Audience? In my opinion, the answer to this is a resounding YES. The Last Airbender fiasco points to the fact that in many cases, audiences want to see a diverse cast, but are denied the opportunity of doing so. Tyler Perry's films, which are targeted towards and heavily feature black females, have been extremely successful for non-action films. One of the biggest film franchises of the decade, the Twilight Saga, is targeted almost exclusively at women. While the films I have mentioned here aren't exactly known for their quality, there are many immensely popular and critically acclaimed movies with female protagonists. 2012's second highest grossing film, The Hunger Games, features Jennifer Lawrence as a strong heroine. The second highest grossing film of all-time, Titanic (1997), is essentially a chick-flick-meets-disaster movie. The key to success behind these films is that they have managed to create stories and characters that appeal to both men and women. Titanic in particular proves that this can be done, even with a female oriented script. In terms of race, films like Remember the Titans (2000) (a film explicitly about race) and I Am Legend(2007) demonstrate that films with minority leads can have box office success. Perhaps Denzel Washington and Will Smith (who is, without a doubt, the most consistent box office draw in Hollywood, even outside of his franchise films, Bad Boys and Men In Black) are very special cases. More likely, if more minority actors (particularly Hispanic or Asian actors) were given the chance to lead, we would see more cases like these two men.
Will Smith has been the lead in four movies that have grossed over 200 million domestically. The 20 films he has been in (only 3 of which are sequels) have made $132,356,534 on average.