Fan CastingOliver stone’s Return of the apes (1993)

By way of background - explained much later in the script - the central character was formerly known as scientific genius Dr. Robert Plant. Making extraordinary discoveries in the study of mitochondrial DNA (mDNA), Plant’s youthful arrogance prompted a fatal mistake. He and the three young researchers he was working with drew lots for the chance to prove his theories in the research laboratories at UC Berkeley. He was left behind while the others, including Ali Conoily, to whom he was engaged, went into sensory deprivation tanks under the influence of a chemical cocktail devised by Plant. They died in the unauthorized experiment, and his career was over. He abandoned his work, changed his name to ‘Will Robinson’ (because he was “Lost in Space”), and took up a position as a lab assistant at Harvard.