When it comes to making movies, actors are just one small piece of a huge puzzle.
Between the writing, the directing, the editing, and the marketing, there are so many things
that can go wrong that it's no wonder stars occasionally think their own movies are going
to be total bombs.
Sometimes they're right, but other times, stars have been shocked when their films actually
became huge hits instead.
Here's a look at some insanely successful films that even their stars didn't believe
in.
The Terminator
When Arnold Schwarzenegger was offered the title role in the 1984 sci-fi classic The
Terminator, his agent told him it would be the end of his career.
But Schwarzenegger disagreed, not because he thought the movie was going to be good,
but because he figured the film was so "low profile" it wouldn't even register as a blip
on his career when it failed.
Schwarzenegger remained just as negative as he was gearing up to film the movie, telling
a friend who inquired about a strange pair of boots in his trailer on the set of Conan
the Destroyer that they were from "some s---y movie I'm doing."
Of course, the boots were part of his costume for The Terminator, you know, the film that
made him a household name.
The Full Monty
If you've never seen The Full Monty, just imagine Magic Mike, only filmed in a bleak
English city in the '90s, and instead of shredded American actors, starred a bunch of English
guys with dad bods.
The film was a box office smash, earned four Oscar nominations, and is consistently ranked
as one of the greatest British films ever made.
Also, lead actor Robert Carlyle hated it.
Why?
Well, in an interview with talk show host Graham Norton, Carlyle explained that the
shoot was extremely hard, and that the first cut of the movie was so bad executives planned
to send it straight to video.
"It was a tough shoot, Full Monty was a tough shoot."
"You really didn't see 'hit' written on Full Monty?"
"Thought it was a load of s---."
[Laughter]
Luckily, after the director was fired, a new editor was brought in who totally recut the
film, resulting in the classic version fans know and love.
Nice.
It
With near-universal critical acclaim and hundreds of millions of dollars made at the box office,
It ranks among the most critically and commercially successful horror movies ever made.
And that was a huge relief to star Bill Skarsgård, who told Variety he was convinced the whole
time that the movie was going to fail, saying,
"I just felt something really terrible was going to happen to me personally, or the movie."
Not because he thought it was bad, but because he thought things were going too well, and
kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It never did, though, and the movie became one of the biggest smash hits of 2017.
Pirates of the Caribbean
Nobody expected Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to succeed.
It was a PG-13 Disney pirate adventure based on a theme park ride, just for starters.
Even Disney head honcho Michael Eisner tried to shut production down when he found out
it was going to cost over $100 million.
"That probably was the most difficult decision in my history on committing to a movie."
Eisner wasn't alone in his misgivings.
During a frank interview with The Guardian in 2008, Keira Knightley confessed that most
of the principal cast were embarrassed to be working on the movie.
"It was really f---ing embarrassing and we all thought it was going to be total s---."
Knightley never told any of her friends she was working on it, which must have made for
some fun conversations after it turned out to be a massive worldwide hit that spawned
a blockbuster franchise.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Like many in Hollywood, Chris Pratt was pretty worried that the first Guardians of the Galaxy
movie was just too weird to succeed.
In fact, both he and director James Gunn admitted that they were pretty worried that their careers
would be over if, as pundits predicted, the film turned out to be "Marvel's first bomb."
Pratt told The Hollywood Reporter,
"You don't make a movie with a talking tree.
You don't spend this much money on a raccoon with a gun.
For me, I was like, 'Oh, so this movie is going to bomb.
Done.
This is the end of my career.'"
More than $700 million and a heap of critical praise later, Pratt was the face of a franchise,
and Gunn was one of Hollywood's hottest writer-directors.
Pass the ammo, trash pandas!
Taken
Released when Liam Neeson was in his mid-50s, Taken somehow managed to take a veteran actor
known almost exclusively for his roles in serious dramas and a single Star Wars movie
and establish him as an action star.
It turned out to be a surprise box office success that spawned a film trilogy and TV
spinoff, and nobody was more surprised than Neeson himself.
During a visit to The Late Late Show, Neeson admitted that he figured the film's plot of
"a man punches half of Europe to find his daughter" was too basic to warrant a cinematic
release.
"I just thought, 'No, it's straight to video.'
It's like, it's simple."
Neeson reportedly took the role of ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills because he was sure he'd
never get another offer to do an action movie, considering his age.
Nearly a decade later, he's still whooping bad-guy butt.
Animal House
According to Hollywood lore, during the production of Animal House, an executive from Universal
approached director John Landis with a simple ultimatum: find a big-name star they could
put on the poster, or the studio would pull the plug.
Luckily for Landis, he just so happened to be good friends with Donald Sutherland, who
said that he'd happily appear in the movie, for $250,000.
The studio said no, so Landis made a counteroffer: $25,000 for a single day's work and two percent
of the film's gross.
Sutherland told Landis "I just want the money," because he didn't think the movie would succeed.
So a revised offer of $35,000 was drawn up.
By his own estimation, turning down that initial two percent offer cost Sutherland $14 million
for a single day's work.
Whoops!
Star Wars
Even George Lucas, the mastermind behind the Star Wars franchise, wasn't so sure the film
would be a hit.
Shortly before Star Wars hit theaters in 1977, he visited the set of his friend Steven Spielberg's
new movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Lucas was so impressed he became convinced Close Encounters was going to blow Star Wars
away at the box office.
Spielberg disagreed, and offered up a deal: he would give Lucas 2.5% of Close Encounters'
box office gross in exchange for a 2.5% stake in Star Wars.
Lucas jumped at the deal - and by some estimates, Spielberg ended up making nearly $40 million
as a result.
Now that turned out to be a pretty good bet!
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