Recently twitter was a blaze with chatter and debate over Ballislife.com’s tweet regarding the greatest NBA players of all-time. The simple tweet asked basketball fans to select an all-time NBA team with just $15 to spend. Each position of the starting roster featured some of the most iconic players to ever play the game. Different price values were assigned to each player to ensure no one team is weighted unfairly. The concept was so intriguing that a similar $15 challenge for baseball popped up days later.
Keeping with the spirit of the challenge, I could not help but ponder what the film version of this might look like. I mean one would have to be crazy to try and shrink years of film history into five slots. Fortunately, I forgot to take my meds this morning and felt insane enough to give it a try. Consider this the $15 Film Casting Challenge if you will.
The rules are simple: using $15 fictional dollars you must fill out your film cast from the categories below without going over budget. You can only select one person per category. If you happen to have money leftover you can always pick an extra person for a brief cameo role. Please note that the cameo appearance must match the value of the amount you have remaining. For example, if you have $2 remaining you cannot cast Marlon Brando ($5) in a brief cameo role, but you can cast Ingrid Bergman ($2) for the cameo.
Now obviously there are numerous individual who could have made the list below. So do not consider this the definitive list of the best of the best, which it is clearly not. This is merely an exercise to see who you would choose from the given options. Here are your choices:
Director
$5 Martin Scorsese
$4 Steven Spielberg
$3 Stanley Kubrick
$2 Alfred Hitchcock
$1 Quentin Tarantino
Actor
$5 Marlon Brando
$4 Tom Hanks
$3 Robert De Niro
$2 Jack Nicholson
$1 Sidney Poitier
Actress
$5 Meryl Streep
$4 Katharine Hepburn
$3 Cate Blanchett
$2 Ingrid Bergman
$1 Bette Davis
Supporting Actor
$5 Daniel Day-Lewis
$4 Philip Seymour Hoffman
$3 James Stewart
$2 Jack Lemmon
$1 Michael Shannon
Supporting Actress
$5 Kate Winslet
$4 Tilda Swinton
$3 Olivia de Havilland
$2 Deborah Kerr
$1 Viola Davis
So have at it and let us know who your $15 dream cast would be in the comments section. If you are feeling extra creative you can even provide a brief synopsis of the plot.
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Cinema Axis 
Great idea, man. My choices would be…
Director: Quentin Tarantino $1
Actor: Robert DeNiro $3
Actress: Meryl Streep $5
Sup. Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis $5
Sup.Actress: Viola Davis $1
Imagine the possibilities with this cast. I would love to see this happen in real life. Hopefully Tarantino is making the calls right now!
What a fun idea!
Alfred Hitchcock (2)
Robert DeNiro (3)
Bette Davis (1)
Daniel Day-Lewis (5)
Tilda Swinton (3)
Michael Shannon cameo (1)
The Master of Suspense has traveled ahead in time and arrives in the present to direct his next murder mystery thriller. It’s a redux of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. However, instead of purple and pinks and reds, the Grand Budapest is filmed in black and white. Bette Davis is mysterious Madame D. with ultimate control over all the principal players in the plot. Tilda Swinton is her granddaughter who is in love with and assists Daniel Day Lewis play the part of now perverted, demented M. Gustave. To their victims, they hack their money, their information, and eventually their bodies. Robert DeNiro is the detective who comes to investigate and barely escapes, but he solves the mystery, and the Michael Shannon cameo is the one guest who gets away from the torture and saves DeNiro from certain death. All within the The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Tilda Swinton is actually $4, so you could not afford the Michael Shannon cameo. However, a Hitchcock version of The Grand Budapest Hotel sounds delicious!
Nice idea! I’ll go for…
Stanely Kubrick (3)
Jack Nicholson (2)
Cate Blanchett (3)
Daniel Day-Lewis (5)
Deborah Kerr (2)
Kubrick and Nicholson together again, I like it! I also like the supporting pairing of Kerr and Day-Lewis.
Alfred Hitchcock (2)
Jack Nicholson (2)
Cate Blanchett (3)
Daniel Day-Lewis (5)
Viola Davis (1)
Jack Lemmon (2)
The cameo by Jack Lemmon is a nice addition. This would be one hell of a Hitchcockian thriller.
OK, Stanley Kubrick ($3)
Jack Nicholson ($2)
Cate Blanchett ($3)
Jack Lemmon ($2)
Kate Winslet ($5)
I just spent the entire budget.
Money well spent indeed. With Kubrick directing, I would not make a single change.
Tarantino (1)
Winslet (5)
PSH (4)
Jack (2)
don’t care (3 or less)
that 4some is enough
I like the confidence in going with the foursome. Any of the lead actresses $3 or less would be icing on the cake.
My picks would be:
Quentin Tarantino ($1)
Sidney Poitier ($1)
Ingrid Bergman ($2)
Philip Seymour Hoffman ($4)
Tilda Swinton ($4)
Cameos: Michael Shannon, Viola Davis, and Bette Davis ($1 each)