Random Actors Who Aren't Ashamed Of Their Flops (14 items)

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  (#1) John Travolta

  • 65

  If you're looking for a big-budget, sci-fi epic that's utterly reviled by critics and audiences alike, then look no further than 2000's Battlefield Earth. This action film adaptation of the L. Ron Hubbard novel of the same name managed an abysmal critics' score of 3% and an audience score of 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is backed up by its dreadful box office performance and the fact that it swept the Golden Raspberry Awards that year.

  One of the few who seem to dig Battlefield Earth is its star/producer John Travolta. During a 2017 interview with the Daily Beast's Marlow Stern, Travolta was asked if he regretted making the movie. "No way," he replied. "Are you kidding? Why would I ever regret that? I had the power to do whatever I wanted, and I chose to do a book that I thought was worthy of making into a movie. It's a beautiful film."
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  (#2) Michael Caine

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  After Michael Caine became a Hollywood mainstay in the '60s and '70s, but before he became a go-to supporting actor throughout the '90s and 2000s, the actor hit a bit of a career slump. This downturn saw Caine taking roles in lackluster films because, well, a guy's gotta make a living. One of these pictures was 1987's Jaws: The Revenge. With the all-time great tagline of "This Time It's Personal" and an astonishing 0% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, Jaws: The Revenge is one of the most iconically bad movies of all time.

  So, does Caine regret starring in it? Far from it. The actor once said, "I have never seen it but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific." If you could make enough money to purchase a nice house from a few weeks of work (in the Bahamas, no less), it stands to reason you'd feel the same way.
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  (#3) Jeremy Irons

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  If starring in a film helps you renovate a decaying castle in Ireland, it's hard to entirely regret that decision. 2000's Dungeons & Dragons, based on the popular role-playing game of the same name, may have been a box office bomb, condemned by critics and audiences alike, but Jeremy Irons - who played the evil Mage Profion - got paid a hefty sum to be in it, so it's all gravy to him.

  When reflecting on Dungeons & Dragons, Irons has mentioned that "once in a while you have to risk a bit" - and even though he called shooting the film "a nightmare of a production," he is quick to remind those who ask him about the project that he got paid. Considering Irons has appeared in over 30 movies since Dungeons & Dragons was unleashed upon the world, it's clear he's laughing all the way to the bank.
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  (#4) Dustin Hoffman

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  1987's superflop Ishtar is one of the most notorious films in all of Hollywood history. As it fell victim to extensive delays and a ballooning budget, the movie was denounced before it even came out and has gone on to become (arguably unfairly) labeled as one of the worst movies of all time. While it's obvious that both critics and audiences weren't exactly in love with the film, there are many worse movies from 1987 alone (hello again, Jaws: The Revenge). 

  While the film's production in Morocco was certainly turbulent, star Dustin Hoffman looks back on Ishtar fondly. In a 2009 interview with Ain't It Cool News, Hoffman explained:

  The thing I love about [Ishtar] - and I love it with all of its flaws - is that it has a statement to make. And that is: It is far, far better to spend a life being second rate in something that you're passionate about, than to spend a life being first-rate at that which you are not passionate about. I thought that was worth making a movie about.
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  (#5) Laurence Olivier

  • Dec. at 82 (1907-1989)

  Famously described by The New York Times' Vincent Canby as looking "like the most expensive B-movie ever made," 1981's Inchon is not a beloved film, nor was it financially successful in the least. In the four decades since its release, it has never been made available on home video. It's a film almost forgotten to history, but Hollywood legend Laurence Olivier wasn't embarrassed by his involvement.

  In an interview during the film's production, he made his reasons for starring in Inchon abundantly clear: "People ask me why I'm playing in this picture. The answer is simple. Money, dear boy... I'm almost used up now and I can feel the end coming... Nothing is beneath me if it pays well. I've earned the right to damn well grab whatever I can get in the time I've got left."
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  (#6) Kevin Costner

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  In the late '80s and early '90s, Kevin Costner became one of the most successful actors in Hollywood thanks to films like The Untouchables, Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, and The Bodyguard. But 1995 brought the sci-fi post-apocalypse of Waterworld, and Costner's career was never really the same after its release. It isn't entirely hated by those who have seen it, and it made a reasonable amount of money upon release, but it was the most expensive film ever made at the time and it failed to live up to the lofty expectations set by that kind of funding.

  Costner made headlines in 2015 after ardently defending the film against naysayers: "I know that people might think of Waterworld as a low point for me. It wasn’t... The movie with all its imperfections was a joy for me." Of course, he doesn't think it's perfect. He mentioned to HuffPost in 2013 that "...it was flawed - for sure. But, overall, it’s a very inventive, cool movie."
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  (#7) Tim Robbins

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  Hot off the heels of the massive successes of both Star Wars and Indiana Jones, George Lucas decided one of the projects he would like to executive produce was 1986's Howard the Duck. The oddball comedy, based on the Marvel comic of the same name, signed a death warrant for Marvel in Hollywood until Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man brought the company back into the limelight. The movie struggled to make back half of its budget and was destroyed by critics upon release, but not everyone reflects on the project negatively.

  Tim Robbins had a supporting part, and while he knows it isn't a great movie, he did manage to make a pretty penny for his role as Phil Blumburtt. In a 2016 interview with Mandatory, Robbins talked about the movie:

  [I]t wound up going over its shooting schedule and I wound up getting paid twice for that movie because of all the overtime. So I think more about that than about the quality of the movie. I think more about that allowing me [the] opportunity to do a movie like Five Corners and to produce great plays with The Actor’s Gang, because of the money I was able to take in on that movie.
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  (#8) Cybill Shepherd

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  At Long Last Love is a 1975 musical comedy that was nearly lost to time. It was lambasted by critics at the time of its release and barely made a blip at the box office. Written and directed by Peter Bogdanovich, the wunderkind director behind The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, At Long Last Love only had one home video release (in 1981) until it was finally released again in 2013 on Blu-ray in an alternate cut, prompting reappraisal from critics like The New Yorker's Richard Brody, who claims the film is a "masterwork."

  Cybill Shepherd, who was in a relationship with Bogdanovich at the time of filming, reflects on the production with nothing but positive memories. In an interview with RogerEbert.com, Shepherd called her time working on the film "a complete joy and one of my happiest experiences."
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  (#9) Ben Affleck

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  2003's Gigli was released at the height of the Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez tabloid frenzy. During their year-and-a-half relationship, "Bennifer" became a staple of gossip magazines, and starring together in films like Gigli and Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl did nothing but fuel the fire. Gigli is notable for how its poor reception was at the time, and it certainly came nowhere close to recouping its $50+ million budget, but Affleck believes it's gotten undue flack over the years.

  While talking with The New York Times in 2016, Affleck mentioned that the film's director Martin Brest (Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run) was one of the best directors he'd ever worked with, and that the picture was unfairly targeted at the time. "It would have been a bad movie no one cared about but because I was dating Jennifer Lopez that made it a big f**king deal, you know," Affleck explained. "And not only is it a bad movie, they're dating each other in the bad movie! It got unfairly maligned."
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  (#10) Armie Hammer

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  2013's The Lone Ranger, while not an entirely terrible film as its reception makes clear, is mostly remembered for losing Walt Disney Studios a lot of money and for the controversy around casting Johnny Depp in a Native American role. Also notable was the decision to cast a then-little-known Armie Hammer as the lead. Though the film proved a controversial failure, Hammer doesn't have any regrets.

  The Lone Ranger enhanced Hammer's profile, leading to roles in pictures like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Birth of a Nation, which further solidified his rising clout. When critics came out against the Disney flop, Hammer struck out at them, claiming the media was "gunning for our movie" and "they decided to slit the jugular of our movie."
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  (#11) Taylor Kitsch

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  2012's Disney blockbuster John Carter didn't garner entirely negative reviews when it came out, but they weren't all that hot, either. A harmless summer romp, John Carter is remembered today for being synonymous with the phrase "box office bomb." It lost Disney around $150 million, but its star looks back on the project with nothing but fondness.

  During a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Taylor Kitsch opened up about the movie. "...I learned a ton on that movie," he exclaimed. "I honestly don’t see it as a failure. I have great memories from it, and I still talk to a bunch of the cast. It is what it is, right?"
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  (#12) Uma Thurman

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  Batman & Robin (1997) has the distinct reputation of being the worst Batman film of all time and for putting the franchise in the grave for nearly a decade. The misguided movie takes what Tim Burton was doing with the Dark Knight in his two successful Bat-pictures and throws it out the window. Batman & Robin tries to hark back to the 1960s Adam West show by dialing up the camp to 11, forgetting to bring the charm with it. 

  Uma Thurman stars as Poison Ivy, one of the villains, and she thinks the film was unfairly railed on by fans who were threatened by the campiness. She told HuffPost in 2014: 

  I think at the time the idea of taking a male superhero and having fun with it and someone using the c-word [campy] on it caused people to be very nasty. And that kind of nastiness was acceptable on those terms. And I think that’s the reason some people were particularly annoyed. They didn’t like seeing that tone applied to their heterosexual male icon.
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  (#13) Halle Berry

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  The only Hollywood film directed by the one-named Frenchman Pitof, 2004's Catwoman was an utter disaster. Near-universal derision from critics and audiences, a failure to even make back its budget, and baffling ignorance of the source material are just a few of the reasons this film is ridiculed to this day. This doesn't mean the film's star, Halle Berry, looks back on her time in the cat-suit with regret, though.

  During the 2018 Matrix Awards, Berry reminisced to the audience about Catwoman. "I met so many interesting people that I wouldn't have met otherwise," she said. "I got to learn two forms of martial arts and I got to learn what not to do, and learning what not to do is as important as learning what to do. And I got that gift, and I got a sh*tload of money that changed my life."
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  (#14) Bruce Willis

  • 63

  In addition to being a true box office flop - grossing just over $17 million domestically on a reported $65 million budget - 1991's action-comedy Hudson Hawk was dismissed by critics at the time. Star Bruce Willis had more at stake than usual with the project, cowriting the theme song as well as having a "story by" credit. 

  It's evident that Hudson Hawk was a bit of a passion project for Willis, and he still defends the movie when it invariably comes up in interviews. While doing promo for Looper in 2012, Willis was asked about the 1991 bomb by HuffPost's Mike Ryan. "I like it a lot," Willis explained. "I still take pride in that film. it was just a little outside the realm of what people [expected]."

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