Can you imagine Hawkeye as a high school junkie or Captain America as an SAT score thief?
What about Tony Stark playing second banana to a football star played by Anthony Michael
Hall?
These are the early roles that MCU actors want you to forget.
With films totaling over $27 billion in career box office earnings, Samuel L. Jackson is
a Hollywood force to be reckoned with.
He's also the highest-grossing actor of all time.
His movies have earned enough to buy a S.H.I.E.L.D.
hovercraft with plenty left over.
Of course, it helps that Jackson has played supporting roles in two of the biggest franchises
ever: the MCU and "Star Wars."
Make no mistake, Jackson is a movie star who makes bank — just not in "Amos and Andrew."
This 1993 comedy clearly had aspirations of being funny, but it fell way, way short of
them, as its dismal reviews demonstrate.
It's a shame, because "Amos and Andrew" stars the promising duo of Nicolas Cage and Samuel
L. Jackson as a low-rent criminal and the playwright whom the cops hire to kidnap, respectively.
Satire is tough to pull off, and bad satire is hard to sit through.
"Amos and Andrew" is the latter, with Jackson struggling to work within the limits of his
two-dimensional straight man and Cage going only half-gonzo in an oddly muted performance.
Jackson made plenty of bad movies early in his career, but as one of his first starring
roles, "Amos and Andrew" is one he'd surely like you to forget about.
Going from child star to movie star isn't easy.
That's a lesson young actors have often learned the hard way.
Scarlett Johansson managed to push through after her breakout role in Robert Redford's
"The Horse Whisperer," which she made when she was just 13.
Over the course of her career, Johansson's movies have made over $15 billion, with many
of them featuring her in above-the-title roles.
However, she may consider herself lucky to have made it to "The Horse Whisperer" in the
first place, as her earlier roles showed promise, but not profit.
In 1994, she played John Ritter's daughter in Rob Reiner's "North," starring Elijah Wood
as a kid searching the globe for the perfect mom and dad.
"North" earned scathing reviews, including a rare zero stars from Roger Ebert, who famously
wrote:
"I hated this movie.
Hated hated hated hated hated this movie.
Hated it."
"What?
What's wrong with it?
It looks totally normal."
After her next film, "Just Cause," didn't fare much better, her agent probably thought
a "Home Alone" movie was a slam dunk.
Except that movie was "Home Alone 3," and it didn't star Macaulay Culkin.
The film's bad reviews and a poor box office performance might have sent Johansson on the
first bus back home, but she thankfully stuck around Hollywood long enough to be in "The
Horse Whisperer" instead, and the rest is history.
Credit is due to director Joe Johnston for seeing nobility, honor, and leadership when
he cast Chris Evans as Steve Rogers in 2011's "Captain America: The First Avenger."
Why?
Because Evans had spent most of his career up to that point playing insufferable jerks.
His feature debut was in 2001's "Not Another Teen Movie," which was part of the rash of
spoof films to come out following the success of "Scary Movie."
As bad as that early role was, it wasn't his worst.
That dubious honor goes to his second film, "The Perfect Score."
In the film, Evans plays Kyle, the studly member of a group of high school friends who
set out to steal SAT questions in preparation for the test.
The group is led by Francesca, played by Scarlett Johansson, making "The Perfect Score" one
of her worst early roles as well.
The premise of a teen comedy heist flick showed promise, but just like a high school slacker,
it failed to live up to its potential, earning bad reviews from both critics and moviegoers.
Kid squawking at bird, and it squawks back.
The box office return was likewise terrible, with only $10 million earned worldwide.
Evans also starred as Johnny Storm in "Fantastic Four" a few years later, but he didn't fully
hit his stride until he donned the stars and stripes.
National Lampoon was once one of the most prestigious names in big-screen comedy, with
such classics as "Animal House," "Vacation," and "Christmas Vacation."
However, 1995's "National Lampoon's Senior Trip" doesn't belong on that list, or on any
list other than this one.
Here, the MCU star in question is Jeremy Renner — the man behind Hawkeye.
Nearly two decades before playing the world's greatest marksman, Renner missed the mark
with his big-screen film debut.
To set the stage, know that the poster for the film featured the Lincoln Memorial with
the tagline "Four Score and Seven Beers Ago."
Yeah, it's that kind of bad.
Renner stars as Mark "Dags" D'Agastino — a party dude teenager from the Ohio suburbs
whose high school class gets invited to Washington D.C. as a ploy by a U.S. Senator.
Renner gives a solid impression of Sean Penn's Jeff Spicoli from "Fast Times at Ridgemont
High," but "Senior Trip" trades that movie's wit for bro-humor that's about as subtle as
a keg stand.
"I know you like me."
His first movie is also arguably his worst, with bad reviews and an abysmal $4.6 million
box office performance.
If Earth's Mightiest Heroes were a basketball team, Don Cheadle's War Machine would be the
sixth man, which, given how many Avengers there actually are in the MCU now, is still
saying something.
While Cheadle has never been the lead, his turn as Colonel James Rhodes has definitely
been a valuable addition to the Avengers and the franchise.
Cheadle wore his character's titanium-alloy suit like a glove, which makes sense since
"Iron Man 2" wasn't actually his first foray into the superhero genre.
That came 17 years earlier in 1993's "The Meteor Man."
In that film, Robert Townsend plays a high school teacher in a rough urban neighborhood
who develops superpowers after being struck by a meteorite.
Think "Dangerous Minds" meets ... "Armageddon?"
Don Cheadle plays Goldilocks, a member of the community's biggest gang.
Though the movie isn't good, Cheadle tweeted about the experience in 2020 and seemed to
have a good sense of humor about his role in the film.
That said, he still probably wouldn't mind if you just forgot about "The Meteor Man."
With an Academy Award on her mantle for 2015's "Room," Brie Larson was a big name before
she became "Captain Marvel" in 2019.
And with more than $1 billion in global grosses for "Captain Marvel" — the second-best solo
superhero debut in the MCU behind only "Black Panther" — she's become an even bigger star
since.
While she won her Oscar in her mid-twenties, Larson had been acting in Hollywood for more
than a decade by then, including bit parts in several B-movies.
But one of her biggest misses came via "The Trouble with Bliss," which sank like an Infinity
Stone in 2011.
In the film, Michael C. Hall plays Morris Bliss, a jobless and broke bloke in his mid-30s
who begins a relationship with his former high school classmate's 18-year old daughter,
played by Larson.
Larson is in pure Manic Pixie Dream Girl mode here, in a performance so full of quirky charm
she'd make Zooey Deschanel go goth.
"Oh, no."
Based on its dreadful reviews, it's clear "The Trouble With Bliss" in fact has many
troubles — not least of which is that it tries so hard to be eccentric that it never
bothers to be interesting.
Within the decade, Larson would be winning the Academy Award and featured in the highest-grossing
film of all time, so it'd be a marvel if she remembers "The Trouble with Bliss."
Hollywood's efforts to turn Chris Hemsworth into a movie star following his success as
Thor have been pretty spotty, with his occasional hits consistently interspersed with box office
disappointments.
Hemsworth came onto the Hollywood stage relatively quickly, as "Thor" was only his fourth major
film role.
His biggest early career disaster was in 2010's "Ca$h".
"Ca$h" is a Sean Bean star vehicle released in 2010 — just a year before "Game of Thrones"
premiered.
The film ironically didn't end up earning much cash.
The earnings were about $46,000 at the box office, or roughly how much it costs to do
Hemsworth's hair for a "Thor" movie.
To be fair, "Ca$h" had a limited theatrical release and went straight to DVD in the U.K.
"What got into us?"
"Cash."
In the film, Hemsworth plays a guy who discovers a briefcase full of money, spends it all,
and then finds out that it belonged to Sean Bean's character, who wants his money back.
Based on the film's reception, a lot of moviegoers probably wanted their money back as well.
Benedict Cumberbatch rose to stardom because of his "high-functioning sociopath" interpretation
of Sherlock Holmes in "Sherlock," and he rose even higher as the eponymous Master of the
Mystic Arts in "Doctor Strange."
However, somewhere out there in the Multiverse of Madness, Cumberbatch's career never recovered
from his early role in the 2009 biopic "Creation."
While arguably not the star's worst movie, it's his most noteworthy misfire before the
premiere of "Sherlock" in 2010.
In "Creation," Paul Bettany plays Charles Darwin, whose faith in God is shattered after
the death of his daughter.
He then must decide whether or not to finish his landmark "On The Origin of Species" over
the objections of his devout wife.
Spoiler alert: He does.
Cumberbatch plays Joseph Dalton Hooker, another prominent scientist of the time who encourages
Darwin to complete his magnum opus.
Fortunately for Cumberbatch, it's a small role, so he didn't suffer any major setbacks
from starring in this 108-minute yawner.
The film moves about as fast as evolution, and it earned bad reviews from critics and
moviegoers alike.
Fortunately, survival of the fittest was kind to Cumberbatch's career, but he still probably
wouldn't mind if you just forgot about his role in "Creation."
As Wanda Maximoff, AKA The Scarlet Witch, Elizabeth Olsen can craft magical hexes that
bring pretty much any reality she wants into existence.
If Olsen possessed those same kinds of powers in real life, she'd probably try to cast a
spell to erase "Very Good Girls" from her filmography.
Released in 2013 — one year before "Godzilla" and two years before "Avengers: Age of Ultron"
— "Very Good Girls" is a very bad movie that wastes its excellent cast.
Olsen and Dakota Fanning play two teenagers whose friendship is tested when they both
pledge to lose their virginity before college, then fall for the same guy.
It's basically like if "American Pie" were trying for indie drama vibes instead of gross-out
raunchy comedy.
Whatever the writers were going for, the result is arguably the worst movie of Olsen's career.
"Like, he'll never slap me on my butt again."
To be honest, we could list a lot of Robert Downey Jr.'s early movies here.
Yes, he was featured in a number of excellent films, including "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," "Natural
Born Killers," "Wonder Boys," and "Chaplin," for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
But he also appeared in some real stinkers.
In fact, the star developed something of a reputation for box office bombs.
There are certainly a number of contenders for Downey's worst movie, but only one really
warrants the top spot – "Johnny Be Good."
Don't let the name fool you, it's bad.
Really, really bad.
Released in 1988, the film stars Downey as Leo Wiggins — best friend to hotshot quarterback
Johnny Walker, who's being heavily recruited by elite colleges across the country.
Unfortunately, the would-be comedy satire is neither funny nor thought-provoking.
As Roger Ebert stated in his 0.5 star review,
"The people who made this movie should be ashamed of themselves."
Downey himself may feel the same way, and while he's made plenty of bad movies both
before and after "Iron Man" — looking at you, "Dolittle" — "Johnny Be Good" takes
the cake.
It's not only the worst movie of the star's career, but also one of the worst to feature
an MCU actor, period.
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