Mila Kunis, The Book of Eli, 2009. Passed on the Albert and Allen Hughes' post-apocalyptic drama due to The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Jennifer Lawrence, The Beaver, 2010. Stewart didn't need to test. She and director Jodie Foster had shared a Panic Room in 2001. But now Stewart was Twilight franchise. However well-intentioned, this drama was a bust before the first shot. #1, It starred a Foster mate, the thoroughly disgraced Mel Gibson - deader than John Cleese's parrot. #2, All the dude sites loved asking: Have ya seen Jodie Foster's Beaver? And such like.
Rooney Mara, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, 2010.
Amy Adams, Man of Steel, 2011.
Mia Wasikowska, Stoker, 2012. For his first English-language film, South Korean director Chan-wook Park (Oldboy), was introduced to Hollywood casting: Bella Heathcote, Rooney Mara, Cary Mulligan... and, of course, for a vampire number, the Ms Twilighters, Ashley Greenee and Stewart! What a choice for Nicole Kidman's daughter, besotted with and fretting over the most mysterious Uncle Charlie since Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt some 60 years earlier.
Elle Fanning, Maleficent, 2012. Stewart and Anya Taylor-Joy were also seen for Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty once the titular Angelina Jolie puts a spell on her in Disney's live-action take on the Charles Perrault fairy tale. Not released until 2014.
Rachel Weisz, Oz the Great and Powerful, 2012. Disneyland is no Oz. Yet having lost a bundle on the depressing Return To Oz, 1984, the Mouse House primed the pump anew for this dangerously titled flop. Also up for Evanora: Amy Adams, Kate Beckinsale, Rebecca Hall, Keira Knightley. Director Sam Raimi's favourites became Hilary Swank and Michelle Williams. Then, Weisz arrived out of the blue… and blew everyone away. And Williams became Annie/Glinda.
Margot Robbie, Focus, 2014. Stewart quit when Ryan Gosling dropped out - citing the age difference with the new lead, Will Smith. (Her 24 to his 57). Next, Emma Stone passed, then Jessica Biel, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, Olivia Munn, Rosamund Pike and Michelle Williams were assessed for Jess, the beauty being coached in grifting techniques by an adoring Smith. Robbie was on holiday on a Croatian island when called to an New York audition. She packed in 20 minutes, and by catamaran, bus, two planes (waiting six hours for each), losing her luggage at JFK and wearing only denim shorts, shirt and no make-up, she got to the audition on time. Smith did not. "Hey, I was coming from Queens." "Yeah?" snapped Robbie, "Well, I just came from an island off Croatia and I'm here on time." She reckoned that outburst won her the movie.
Gina Rodriguez, Deepwater Horizon, 2015. Stewart and Emma Stone were also seen for Andrea, in this reconstruction of the titular oil exploration platform explosion, killing eleven BP workers and causing history's worst oil-spill on April 20, 2010.
Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman, 2015. On Warner shelves for a full decade (not helped by David Kelley's disastrous 2011 TVersion), spinning through numerous wonder women, the demi-goddess daughter of Zeus, eventually became the Israeli Gadot. "Very different," she said, "from the experienced, super-confident, grown-up woman"she'd teaser-trailed that year in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2015. Her rivals for the DC Extended Universe included Stewart, Mischa Barton, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Rachel Bilson, Sandra Bullock in 2001 (and for the 2011 tele-film), Bollywood's Priyanka Chopra in 2006, US wrestling star Chyna, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Eva Green, Mad Men's busty Christina Hendricks (Nicolas Winding Refn's choice, 2011), Angelina Jolie in 2001 (ten years later she was asked to direct), Cobie Smulders (WW's voice in The Lego Movie, 2013). The final trio, auditioning in November 2013, were Olga Kurylenko, Elodie Yung and… Gadot.
Emma Watson, Beauty and the Beast, 2016. Stewart, Lily Collins, Emma Roberts, Emmy Rossum, Amanda Seyfried were on Disney's live-action list. But only Watson had been Harry Potter's Hermione! And collected $18m without passing Go or going to jail.
Alicia Vikander, Tomb Raider, 2017. Lara Croft is the girls' James Bond. Many tried to succeed Angelina Jolie from her 2000 version - she won it from 20 candidates. Two dozen lost to the Swedish Vikander, on a roll with her 2016 Danish Girl Oscar and Ex Machinarobot…The Franchise Brigade was represented by two from the Percy Jackson flicks (Alexandra Daddario, Rosario Dawson), two Terminators (Emilia Clarke, Summer Glau), two Underworlders (Kate Beckinsale, Rhona Mitra) and three Twilighters (Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed and Kristen Stewart who simply refused). Plus 007's Gemma Arterton, Harry Potter's Emma Watson, Marvel's Wanda Maximioff (Elizabeth Olsen), Star Wars'Daisy Ridley, Transformers' Megan Fox, TRON's Olivia Wilde, X Men's Jennifer Lawrence, Other also-rans were: Jessica Biel (as perfect as Dawson), Emily Blunt, Emily Browning, Cara Delevingne (Vikander's co-star in Tulip Fever, 2017), Nina Dobrev, Anne Hathaway, Sienna Miller (too mild, surely), Saoirse Ronan and Moon's Kaya Scodelario.