Lovely Bones' Gosling in shock exit

Reuters

STARRING ROLE: Mark Wahlberg has replaced Ryan Gosling in The Lovely Bones.

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Hollywood star Mark Wahlberg has replaced actor Ryan Gosling in Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, just one day before the cameras were about to roll.

Gosling, who had put on 9kg and grown a beard for the part of Susie Salmon's father, quit on Friday due to "creative differences", Variety reported.

Jackson is in Pennsylvania filming The Lovely Bones and will continue filming it in Wellington early next year.

It is not the first time there has been a shock last minute change to the cast in a Jackson movie.

Irish actor Stuart Townsend was to have played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, but was fired by Jackson only a few days after filming began in 1999. The part then went to the relatively unknown Viggo Mortensen.

Wahlberg - a former Calvin Klein underwear model and rapper known as Marky Mark - has risen in the past 10 years to become one of the Hollywood's biggest stars.

He has juggled big budget box office fare including Boogie Nights, Planet of the Apes and The Italian Job with left-field movies including I Heart Huckabees, The Perfect Storm and The Departed, which garnered him a best supporting actor Oscar nomination this year.

The Lovely Bones cast includes Rachel Weisz, who plays Wahlberg's wife, Susan Sarandon as Grandmother Lynn, and Irish newcomer Saoirse Ronan, 13, as Susie Salmon. Susie is murdered by Mr Harvey, played by Stanley Tucci. Michael Imperioli from The Sopranos is police detective Len Fenerman.

Variety said Wahlberg, 36, read the script for The Lovely Bones - written by Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens - and by Sunday had agreed to star.

He had recently finished filming The Happening, directed by M Night Shyamalan, in Pennsylvania.

Wahlberg's future films include The Fighter with Brad Pitt.

He is also executive producer of the television series Entourage, for which Jackson had a cameo in the most recent season.

When Townsend was fired from The Lord of the Rings a studio executive said it was over "director-actor creative chemistry". Later Jackson said he realised Townsend was not suitable for the part.

Gosling is also relatively unknown but a rising star. He was nominated for a best actor Oscar this year for Half Nelson and stars alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins in Fracture, which is released on Thursday.