Everyone's done something embarrassing, but most people don't have their biggest mistakes
seen by millions of people.
These movie flops hit their actors a little too hard.
The disappointing box office for "Shazam: Fury of the Gods" was not a surprise.
By the time the long-delayed superhero sequel hit theaters in March 2023, a full reboot
of the DC Universe had already been announced, making the film already seem like yesterday's
news.
And getting worse reviews than the 2019 original didn't help matters.
While the fate of Shazam in James Gunn's new DC Universe has yet to be officially decided,
star Zachary Levi has certainly been acting like his once-steady superhero gig is threatened,
if not already over.
On his Instagram account, Levi pleaded for moviegoers to boost the Rotten Tomatoes audience
score for "Fury of the Gods" to increase the discrepancy with the negative critics' score,
saying,
"It doesn't make any sense that we got shook down the way that we got shook down, it really
doesn't."
While begging more people to see his current movie, he's also been publicly asking for
new roles — he tweeted at Neil Druckmann asking to join the cast of "The Last of Us."
Levi has also provided a look at some of the chaos behind-the-scenes at Warner Bros., specifically
calling out Dwayne Johnson for blocking the Justice Society of America characters from
the "Black Adam" movie from cameoing in "Fury of the Gods" and vetoing a potential Shazam
cameo in "Black Adam."
In general, it's easier to find more examples of writers and directors feeling devastated
following a flop than actors.
It makes sense why — audiences rejecting a film can feel more personal when it's a
product of your vision.
Such is the case with "Bros," the well-reviewed but financially unsuccessful 2022 gay romcom
that Billy Eichner starred in, co-wrote, and executive produced.
In a since-deleted tweet, Eichner said,
"Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore, etc, straight people,
especially in certain parts of the country, just didn't show up for 'Bros.'"
This assessment of why the movie flopped was naturally subject to controversy.
Homophobia was likely one factor for why the film — sold as the first major studio movie
with an all-LGBTQ lead cast — struggled in theaters.
But the fact is, a lot of LGBTQ viewers avoided the movie as well, judging by the box office
results.
Perhaps this was due to poor marketing, or maybe people just felt like this type of movie
is something they'd rather watch on streaming than in theaters.
Before he became a household name, Jack Black was half of the comedy-rock band Tenacious
D alongside Kyle Gass.
"The D" had an HBO series in the late '90s, and thanks in part to Black's breakout performance
in "High Fidelity," the band got a record contract and released their self-titled first
album in 2001.
In 2006, their long-in-the-works movie, "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny," finally hit theaters
— but nobody saw it.
Directed by Liam Lynch and co-written by Lynch, Black, and Gass, this fantasy origin story
about the band's formation and quest to claim Satan's guitar pick got mixed reviews from
critics, who questioned whether the band's stoner schtick that worked great in episodic
format successfully sustained a full feature.
Black described the film's box office failure as a huge loss to Maxim magazine and quit
screenwriting as a result.
Tenacious D's next album, 2012's "Rize of the Fenix," opened with the lines,
"When 'The Pick of Destiny' was released, it was a bomb."
They joked about the experience with a fictional story of the group breaking up and needing
to reunite as a result of that failure.
Though he was heartbroken by this financial failure, Black has been heartened by the fact
his fans still enjoy the movie years later.
2003 was not a great year for Ben Affleck.
His growing celebrity was met with a growing backlash, and his acting credits that year
were savaged by critics — one of those was "Gigli."
The romcom, in which Affleck played a gangster with a silly-sounding name who falls in love
with a lesbian played by Jennifer Lopez, became one of the most infamous bombs of the 21st
century.
The fact Affleck began dating Lopez on the set of the film made for perfect tabloid fodder,
cementing its infamy, even when Affleck has starred in bigger money-losers.
Reflecting on "Gigli" 20 years later in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Affleck
said that there's still some good stuff in the film, while admitting that overall it
didn't work.
But what really hurt was how the response to the film impacted people's perceptions
of him as a person:
"I can see now how people looked at me and thought of this person as some callow frat
guy who's cavalier, or has too much.
It engendered a lot of negative feelings in people about me.
There's that aspect of people that I got to see that was sad and hard, it was depressing
and really made me question things and feel disappointed and have a lot of self-doubt."
"No wire hangers!"
Faye Dunaway's campy, over-the-top performance as the movie star and abusive mother Joan
Crawford in the 1981 drama "Mommie Dearest" was instantly divisive: she was runner-up
for best actress at the National Society of Film Critics Awards and the New York Film
Critics Circle Awards, and also won worst actress at the Razzies and the Stinkers Bad
Movies Awards.
Though the movie has gone on to be embraced as a "so bad, it's good" cult film, it disappointed
at the box office and had a negative effect on Dunaway's career.
The actor has mostly avoided talking about her experience with "Mommie Dearest," but
in a 2016 interview with People, she explained that in the aftermath of the film's release,
"People would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me."
She considers the movie a bad decision, but one she can't take back, saying,
"It's unfortunate they felt they had to make that kind of movie.
But you can't be ashamed of the work you've done.
You make a decision, and then you have to live with the consequence."
Has any actor expressed their hatred for a certain role of theirs than George Clooney
has with his performance as the Dark Knight in "Batman & Robin"?
The 1997 Joel Schumacher flop was one of the first movies to be majorly hit by nerd backlash
in the early years of the internet, killing the live-action "Batman" movie franchise until
Christopher Nolan's reboots.
The failure didn't hurt Clooney's career, as he'd rise up as one of the biggest stars
in Hollywood in the years following its release, but it's nonetheless an experience he regrets.
One article from Vulture in 2014 chronicled six different instances of Clooney apologizing
for, or making fun, of "Batman & Robin" over the years — and he's continued to do it
multiple times since, including on "The Graham Norton Show" in 2015.
"I always apologize for 'Batman & Robin.'"
In particular, he's complained about how hard it was to act in the Batman suit and has made
plentiful jokes about that version of the suit's infamous nipples.
Even when accepting "Icon of the Year" honors from GQ in 2020, Clooney still made sure to
talk about how bad his acting was in "Batman & Robin" in the context of being honest about
one's shortcomings.
Even Clooney's hatred of "Batman & Robin" might not compare to the sheer loathing Bob
Hoskins felt towards the 1993 "Super Mario Bros." movie.
Long before Chris Pratt voiced an animated Mario in 2023's "The Super Mario Bros. Movie,"
Hoskins wore the red plumber's uniform in a bizarre live-action adaptation that seemingly
took more inspiration from "Blade Runner" than from the whimsical Nintendo games.
Hoskins didn't even know the movie was based on a video game when he started working on
it; when his kids told him, he responded,
"I used to play King Lear."
The production was a mess, going over schedule and over budget with the script constantly
changing.
Hoskins and his co-star, John Leguizamo, were drinking a lot on set, and one stunt broke
Hoskins' finger.
All this suffering for a movie that was universally hated by critics and Mario fans alike.
In a 2011 interview with The Guardian, Hoskins called "Super Mario Bros." his worst job,
biggest disappointment, and the one thing he wished he could erase from his past.
What can even be said about a bomb as bad and bafflingly weird as "Cats"?
The stars of Tom Hooper's 2019 uncanny valley adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit musical
have mostly responded to the film's critical and financial failure.
James Corden and Rebel Wilson mocked the special effects at the Oscars, Taylor Swift and Sir
Ian McKellen emphasized that they had fun on the set of that ridiculous movie, and Dame
Judi Dench didn't even see it.
Some actors have praised the film, while others criticized it, but none of them responded
with anger or hatred towards the film — except Jason Derulo.
The Rum Tum Tugger in "Cats" was the singer's first acting role, which might explain why
he felt more defensive about it than his co-stars.
Speaking to TMZ at the time of the film's release, he questioned whether critics knew
what they were even talking about, asking:
"Have they made a film ever in their life?"
He later told The Telegraph,
"I thought it was gonna change the world."
Ultimately, he says he learned a lesson from the experience, saying:
"You can't wait for the perfect moment, 'cause that might not be your moment.
So you've just got to go for gold.
That's how I'll move forward."
Neil Marshall's 2019 reboot of "Hellboy," starring David Harbour as the titular red
demon, was greeted with skepticism from the moment it was announced.
Many fans were disappointed that Guillermo Del Toro never got the chance to make a third
"Hellboy" film with Ron Perlman, and Harbour believes that this disappointment colored
the reactions to the reboot, leading critics and fans to judge it unfairly.
Speaking with Digital Spy shortly after the film's release, Harbour admitted that the
film had big problems but that it was still unfairly criticized based on audiences' expectations.
In 2022, he opened up to GQ about having a hard time personally following the film's
failure, and even called Ryan Reynolds, who had his own widely hated superhero flop with
"Green Lantern," for support.
Harbour succinctly put the ultimate lesson he learned from his "Hellboy" experience this
way:
"I learned not to f--- with an established IP, that's for sure."
The 2008 comedy "The Love Guru" is one of those rare bombs so disastrous it basically
single handedly killed its lead actor's career.
Mike Myers starred in, co-wrote, and co-produced the film, and he won Razzies for all three
of those jobs.
Aside from voice acting in the fourth "Shrek" film, he hasn't had a leading role in a movie
since, only occasionally appearing on TV, in documentaries, and in bit parts in films.
Despite the huge failure of "The Love Guru" and its devastating impact on his career,
Myers still defended the film in a 2014 GQ interview, saying,
"There's a lot in that movie comedically that I'm really, really proud of.
I completely recognize it didn't meet an audience."
He also tries not to get too personally upset about the film bombing, saying,
"I just love making stuff, dude, you know, you can't be too attached up and you can't
be too attached down."
Unlike the other examples on this list, Jennifer Lawrence was not personally bothered by the
fact her 2017 psychological horror movie, "mother!," bombed.
The ultraviolent religious allegory was always going to confuse some viewers and offend others,
so it's not a shocker that critics were divided on the film and mainstream audiences rejected
it.
In a Variety "Actors on Actors" video discussion with Adam Sandler, Lawrence said she typically
doesn't read reviews or think about her films after she's done promoting them.
So why is Lawrence on this list?
Because, as revealed in the Variety video, the film's writer-director and her then-boyfriend,
Darren Aronofsky, was devastated by the response to the film, and Lawrence got sick of him
constantly talking about the film's reviews:
"I was doing double duty of trying to be a supportive partner while also being like,
'Can I please, for the love of God, not think about 'mother!"
for one second?'"
Lawrence describes the dynamic as unhealthy for both of them, and she broke up with Aronofsky
in the months after the film's release.