Landing a role in a superhero movie can launch an actor into a world of
fame and fortune — or even revive a floundering career. Sadly, however, that's not always the
case. Here are some superhero movie stars Hollywood seems to have stopped casting.
Before the MCU, the Dark Knight trilogy, or even the original X-Men movies… there was Blade.
Back in 1998, Wesley Snipes starred as the titular Marvel vampire hunter, a hero whose
unique lineage gives him all the strengths of vampires and none of their weaknesses.
Snipes reprised the role for two sequels, but after 2004's Blade:
Trinity, things slowed down considerably for the actor — for a number of reasons.
For one, Snipes fell into some serious legal trouble.
In 2008, he was convicted on three counts of willful failure to file
federal income tax returns and was sentenced to three years in prison,
although the actor was allowed to serve the final three months under house arrest. But even before
his legal problems, Snipes built a reputation for being nigh-on impossible to work with.
In a 2012 A.V. Club interview, Snipes' Trinity co-star Patton Oswalt revealed some eye-opening
stories about the actor, including the fact that he would communicate with the movie's director
exclusively through Post-it notes signed "From Blade." He was also constantly stoned on set,
and refused to open his eyes whilst filming one scene. Hence… this.
In recent years, Snipes has been working to rebuild his career, and he appears to
be making some headway. In 2019, he appeared in the Netflix original Dolemite Is My Name,
and he's set to star opposite Eddie Murphy in the comedy sequel Coming 2 America. Whether
things are truly turning around for the actor, however, has yet to be seen.
In the mid-aughts, it looked like Jessica Alba would be on Hollywood's A-list for
a long time to come — and she owed a good deal of her success to comic book movies.
Alba was tapped to play Susan Storm in 2005's Fantastic Four, and that same year, she played
the knockout dancer Nancy in 2005's Sin City, the adaptation of Frank Miller's edgy crime comics.
Suddenly, however, Alba fell off the radar. According to Alba herself, a big part of the
problem was that she rarely got to sink her teeth into challenging leading parts. Most of
her work was in supporting roles, and many of them featured in poorly-received movies. The sequels to
both Fantastic Four and Sin City tanked, for example, as did most of her later projects.
In a number of interviews over the years, Alba has gone back and forth on whether or not professional
acting is a priority for her anymore, though it's clear she isn't making the mark on Hollywood she
once did. She's currently starring in the crime drama series L.A.'s Finest, a spin-off of the
Bad Boys films. Considering its embarrassing aggregate score of 7% on Rotten Tomatoes,
however, it doesn't seem like it's going to be launching Alba back into the A-list anytime soon.
Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was born with 2008's Iron Man, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man
movies were probably the most prolific and well-loved superhero movies around.
And long before Andrew Garfield or Tom Holland even began their careers,
Tobey Maguire had become one of the definitive superhero movie stars.
"Pizza time!"
While 2002's Spider-Man and its 2004 follow-up were critical and commercial hits, 2007's
Spider-Man 3 ended the franchise on a deafening down note. Helped by the popularity of the first
two films, Spider-Man 3 at least made money, but both fans and critics were deeply disappointed.
Raimi wanted to make Spider-Man 4 to redeem himself, but that movie never came to be.
Spider-Man 3 was a serious body blow to Maguire's acting career. He's enjoyed a few
leading roles since, but none have reached the prominence or success of the Spider-Man flicks.
Of course, Maguire has partly transitioned from starring in films to producing them,
and since Spider-Man 3, the actor has spent more time behind the
camera than in front of it. Maybe that's just where he's happiest.
Time will tell if Marvel fans are destined to see an X-Force film or Deadpool 3 hit theaters,
but if these movies do see the light of day, you can lay some pretty safe bets that T.J.
Miller won't be involved in either. The actor and comedian played Wade Wilson's friend,
Weasel, in the first two Deadpool films, but his acting career dried up quickly in 2018.
Miller's trouble started back in 2017,
when it was reported he wouldn't be returning to the HBO series Silicon Valley. The show's
creative team told Vulture the following year that Miller was often drunk or high on set,
and that some days, he wouldn't even show up for work. Later in 2017, much more
serious allegations arose from a woman claiming Miller had sexually assaulted her in college.
Finally, in March 2018, Miller was arrested for allegedly calling in a fake bomb threat.
Deadpool 2 producer Lauren Shuler Donner said that, by the time the sexual assault allegations
surfaced, it was too late to remove Miller from the film — but there were signs his role
had shrunk considerably. In September 2018, Ryan Reynolds confirmed that fans shouldn't
expect to see Miller in X-Force. Miller has since said he's contractually obligated to
appear in Deadpool 3 if Disney asks him to be in it, but… well, don't hold your breath.
Okay, so Jim Carrey may not be the first actor you think of when you hear the phrase "superhero movie
stars," but he's done more than his fair share of time in the comic book trenches.
In 1994, he starred as an unstable superhero with shape-shifting powers in The Mask.
The following year, he played the Riddler in Batman Forever, and in 2013,
he portrayed Colonel Stars and Stripes in the hyper-violent superhero comedy Kick-Ass 2.
There was a time when a Carrey comedy was an automatic money-maker — while
some of his dramas are among the most beloved of all time. And it's true,
Carrey still makes movies today, but he's not the A-lister he used to be.
These days, most of his movie work comes in the forms of supporting roles and cameos.
There are a few reasons for Carrey's diminished presence in Hollywood. For one,
he's proven fairly difficult to work with. His method acting antics during the making
of Man on the Moon have become the stuff of legend. He also refused to
help promote Kick-Ass 2 because he wasn't comfortable with the film's violent tone,
especially in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook killings. For another, in more recent years,
Carrey seems perfectly happy to remain outside the spotlight, and on a number of occasions,
he's stated that he feels no real urge to make himself any more famous than he already is.
While Terrence Howard played James Rhodes in 2008's Iron Man, it was Don Cheadle who donned
War Machine's armor in subsequent Marvel films. Howard has since said that when Marvel Studios
approached him to renegotiate for Iron Man 2, they offered him only one-eighth of what he was
originally promised. Howard wasn't shy about expressing his frustrations towards his friend
and co-star Robert Downey Jr., either, though the two would later mend fences.
"It turns out that the person that I helped become
Iron Man took the money that was supposed to go to me and pushed me out."
In the meantime, Howard's career didn't seem to suffer too badly.
He even landed the lead role of hip-hop mogul Lucius Lyon on the musical drama Empire.
Despite Empire's successful six-season run, Howard announced in 2019 that he was
going to quit acting for good. So far, his reasons for the change have been unclear,
mainly because his responses about the decision in interviews have been... rather strange. For
example, during an interview on the red carpet at the 2019 Emmy Awards, Howard explained that:
"I was able to open up the flower of life and find
the real wave conjugations that we've been looking for, for 10,000 years."
He went on to say that, when he opened the so-called flower of life:
"I found a whole new world of wave conjugations that expose the in-between spaces."
It's not particularly clear what Howard means by that,
but one of the consequences of the opening of the flower of life
is apparently that he's gonna give up being an actor. Can't argue with that.
Kevin Spacey turned out to be one of the more memorable parts of a fairly forgettable superhero
movie, when he replaced Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor in 2006's Superman Returns. But Spacey
isn't likely to find work on a superhero movie — or any other kind of movie — anytime soon.
That's because Spacey has since become one of the most loathed villains of the #MeToo movement.
After actor Anthony Rapp told Buzzfeed News in 2017 that Spacey had made unwanted advances
toward him when he was only 14, Spacey claimed he had no memory of the event — and apologized
for what he called, quote, "deeply inappropriate drunken behavior." More allegations followed,
including accusations of sexual harassment and assault from the likes of Harry Dreyfuss,
filmmaker Tony Montana, and crew members from the Spacey-led Netflix series House of Cards.
As a result of the allegations, Spacey's acting career has come to a swift and decisive end.
Netflix fired Spacey from House of Cards and announced it wouldn't release the Netflix
original film Gore, in which Spacey played the late Gore Vidal. Even though the crime thriller
All the Money in the World was already filmed by that point, Spacey was removed from the film,
and director Ridley Scott reshot all of Spacey's scenes with Christopher
Plummer. For all intents and purposes, Kevin Spacey's Hollywood career is dead and buried.
Aaron Eckhart has the distinction of playing an important supporting role in one of the best
superhero movies ever made. The actor famously played Harvey Dent in 2008's The Dark Knight.
But despite receiving critical acclaim for that role — and a number of others — Eckhart
has never quite taken off as a leading man in Hollywood. He's taken a few shots at becoming
an action hero over the years, but most of those movies were commercial and critical failures.
Unfortunately, Eckhart's attempts to find a successful niche probably haven't been helped by
his apparent inability to work well with others. In 2016, Eckhart admitted to The Guardian that
he'd once unleashed what he called the, quote, "quintessential lashing out" on an extra who was
supposedly falling asleep during the actor's monologue. Beyond that, he told The Telegraph
that he has a terrible reputation because, in his words, he's, quote, "just too intense for people."
He went on to admit that he's often highly competitive with his co-stars, too, and likes
to pick them apart during filming. Maybe it's no wonder people are reluctant to work with him.
In 1989's Batman, Kim Basinger played Vicki Vale,
a photojournalist dying to get a photo of Batman — without knowing she's actually
dating him. Basinger has had a long and impressive career, including an Academy
Award for Best Supporting Actress win for her portrayal of Lynn Bracken in the 1997
neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential. Weirdly enough, however, she hasn't worked since 2018.
Early in her career, Basinger became a sex symbol. She played one of James Bond's many
conquests in 1983's Never Say Never Again, she was one half of the steamy pairing in the 1986
erotic drama 9 1⁄2 Weeks, and she mostly only appeared in films as a male hero's love interest.
Speaking to Elle in 2015, Basinger discussed how being typecast as every
hero's main squeeze ultimately hurt her career. The main problem seems to be that,
in more recent years, she has only been hired to play mothers and wives.
Along with being typecast in this way, Basinger has said in interviews that
she suffers from extreme social anxiety — which makes it difficult to play the
networking game in Hollywood. In 2016, she told Net-A-Porter that the moment
most actors dream about — accepting her Academy Award — was genuinely terrifying.
For the time being, it seems like Basinger is happy to have stepped out of the limelight.
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