When Martin Sheen immediately followed his acclaimed performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s cinematic masterpiece, Apocalypse Now, with the, uh, slightly “lesser” The Final Countdown, eyebrows were raised. In response, Sheen shrugged and admitted that even he had to pay the rent somehow.
Sheen is far from the only A-list actor who’s inexplicably starred in a stinkbomb, though. Which begs the question: Why did they do it? There’s no shame in doing a dog when you’re a struggling nobody, but how do established stars get hooked into some of these projects?
Sandra Bullock shot to stardom with Speed and later made a rom-com classic with Miss Congeniality. Both movies have sequels, though, that she’d rather forget.
‘Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous,’ didn’t pack quite the same punch. Bullock was recently asked if she would ever consider making a third installment in the series, to which she answered “God no! No, no.” She went on to say that ‘Miss Congeniality 2’ should never have been made in the first place […]
Bullock recently said that she is “still embarrassed” by the 1997 film ‘Speed 2: Cruise Control,’ People reports. She has been vocal about the film making “no sense,” since it’s about a slow boat heading slowly towards an island. When the interviewer shared that he actually liked ‘Speed 2,’ Bullock jokingly asked if he was under the influence of drugs.
Then there are bombs so spectacular that they become memes. The “Sad Ben Affleck” meme originated from an interview where the actor gave up even trying to be enthusiastic about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), which makes it somewhat inexplicable that he went back for more superhero punishment.
Ben Affleck opened up to the Los Angeles Times about his “awful” experience shooting ‘Justice League.’ “That was a bad experience because of a confluence of things: my own life, my divorce, being away too much, the competing agendas and then [director] Zack [Snyder]’s personal tragedy and the reshooting,” he continued. “It just was the worst experience. It was awful.” He added, “It was everything that I didn’t like about this. That became the moment where I said, ‘I’m not doing this anymore.'” It seems he had a better time even with his 2003 flop ‘Gigli’—the awkward rom-com co-starring Jennifer Lopez amidst their early noughties off-screen romance—a film which is often noted as one of Affleck’s worst and made him “feel disappointed and have a lot of self-doubt.” He told EW in an interview published January 11 that at least ‘Gigli’ led him to directing and, of course, J.Lo.
Picking the worst Adam Sandler movie is admittedly quite the challenge, but Jack and Jill is a strong contender. What makes it even more bizarre is that an acting legend like Al Pacino somehow got roped into even a cameo appearance. But then, Pacino had already co-starred in Gigli.
Pacino is far from the only screen legend to make some legendary turkeys, though. Michael Caine didn’t just make films about murderous severed hands, he also starred in the barrel-scraping Jaws: The Revenge.
One of the great screen legends to emerge out of the 1960s, Caine admits that the film was terrible and that he was only in it for the money. A dud by any stretch of the imagination, the film at least made a small profit.
‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ – Anthony Hopkins
Sir Anthony Hopkins enjoys the luxury of being able to pick and choose his roles. So did he lose a bet here? The film made money of course, but endured negative reviews along the way.
Quite simply one of the worst films of Johnny Depp‘s long career, ‘Mortdecai’ was a huge flop and garnered some of the most barbed reviews ever directed towards him.
In a league of its own, though, is The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: a movie so bad that it finally convinced Sean Connery to retire from acting for good.
Then there’s the horror of musicals starring otherwise great actors who should never, ever, have been asked to sing in public. Lee Marvin groaning through “Wand’rin’ Star” at least fitted his grizzled charm. And Tom Cruise singing in Rock of Ages… is actually surprisingly good. If nothing else, you can’t say the guy doesn’t give it his all.
Daniel Day-Lewis… tried, I guess.
You wouldn’t expect an actor of Day-Lewis’ caliber to end up on a list like this. But hey, that’s show business. A critical and commercial failure, ‘Nine’ required the ‘Lincoln’ actor to sing. However, the audience ended up whistling to a different tune.
Then there are panned performances that, in retrospect, didn’t deserve the drubbing they got.
‘Star Wars’ – Hayden Christensen
Playing Anakin Skywalker in ‘Episode II’ and ‘Episode III’ was no easy feat, and Hayden Christensen quickly learned that after the fury of negative reviews he received.
MSN
In fairness, George Lucas’ excruciating dialogue has challenged the talents of even Harrison Ford, Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor. In hindsight, Christensen did a pretty fair job of playing a moody, whiny teenager. And, if nothing else, his sand monologue has become the stuff of meme legend.
But if you doubt Christensen’s acting chops, check out how he fared with far better material on a similar theme in Life as a House (2001).
Small wonder that fans were so excited to see him reunited with Ewan McGregor in Obi-Wan Kenobi, even if the show itself was otherwise bloody awful.