Not sure about public petitions that directly led to the cancellation of an actor’s casting, but there were incidences of actors who quit because of public outcry or fan disapproval for their new film role.
When Romeo + Juliet came out, Leonardo DiCaprio became a teen idol, when Titanic came out, he became internationally famous teen icon. His fanbase are mostly consisted of teen girls, young women, and older married women. DiCaprio was approached by Lionsgate in 2000 to play Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, director Mary Harron was adamantly against DiCaprio’s casting because his image directly contrast from Patrick Bateman, who is a serial killer who derives sadistic pleasures for murdering young women. Lionsgate fired Harron and tried to raise the film’s budget to 41 million to accommodate Leo’s 21 million salary, Lionsgate and DiCaprio drafted a shortlist of directors to replace Mary Harron, including Oliver Stone, Danny Boyle and Martin Scorsese. Rumor has it that feminist journalist Gloria Steinem persuaded Leo DiCaprio to drop the project; Steinem had told Leo to “Please don’t do this movie. Coming off of ‘Titanic,’ there is an entire planet full of 13-year-old girls waiting to see what you do next, and this is going to be a movie that has horrible violence toward women.” Imho, Leo made the right choice because coming off of Titanic, if his fans heard of him playing a serial killer, they would probably go ballistic.
Will Ferrell had hilariously impersonated George W. Bush when he was on SNL, in 2016 when it was announced Ferrell will produce and portray former POTUS Ronald Reagan in a comedy film, people were not happy. The film receive widespread condemnation from Reagan’s family because the story’s logline is “When Ronald Reagan falls into dementia at the start of his second term, an ambitious intern is tasked with convincing the Commander-In-Chief that he is an actor playing the President in a movie.” Reagan’s family and the Alzheimer’s Association did not find an Alzheimer’s comedy to be humorous. Will Ferrell’s response - he bailed after two days.
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