Star Derailing Role / Multiple Offenders

Some films are so bad or otherwise notorious that they take down the careers of multiple people involved.

A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Unless the star directly announces their retirement, examples shouldn't be added until five years after the relevant role.

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• 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag killed the careers of three actors.
  • Joe Pesci was pretty successful early in The '90s after winning an Academy Award for Goodfellas: following it with the Lethal Weapon sequels, the first two Home Alone films, My Cousin Vinny, and Casino. Pesci's star power was then extinguished in 1997 when 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag bombed, followed by the equally disastrous Gone Fishin' the same year. After Lethal Weapon 4 the next year, he retired from acting barring a few occasional gigs (notably, his Oscar-nominated role in The Irishman, though coaxing him into coming out of retirement was reportedly a struggle, and he didn't even bother attending the ceremony).
  • Andy Comeau was an up-and-coming actor before this film flopped. He worked sporadically on the screen in the following years afterwards, notably in season 4 of House on a guest run. However, this was the only film where he played a lead role.
  • Kristy Swanson saw the damage to her career after The Phantom (see below) exacerbated further with this film's failure. Both flops combined facilitated her decline into smaller parts on screen, though she did land a small but pivotal role in the Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy.
• After Earth did major damage to the careers and reputations of the father-son team at the center of it, Will Smith and Jaden Smith. As did a number of high-profile failures Will was part of, although he has proven time and time again that he can rebound and generate either box office success or acclaim again, sort of averting (or at least zig-zagging) the trope.
  • Following the success of the Karate Kid remake, Jaden was hyped as a child star in the making and a successor to his father, Will Smith. As a result, Will convinced director M. Night Shyamalan to have Jaden play the starring role in After Earth, while he took the supporting role of the main character's father. This came a month after Shyamalan was trying to recover from the massive critical flop of The Last Airbender; he was impressed by the script for After Earth and saw it as an opportunity to try to repair his failing career. However, the film was savaged by critics, with many specifically pointing to Jaden's performance as one of the bigger problems and alleging nepotism on the part of Will getting him the part. While the film was a hit overseas (where Jaden's performance was dubbed over), it bombed in the US and turned Jaden into a laughingstock. A bizarre interview that he and his sister Willow did for V magazine in 2014 only made matters worse. Jaden had a recurring role in the Netflix series The Get Down, which was cancelled after two seasons.
  • The film was the beginning of a rough patch for Will Smith, who was still a bankable A-lister until that point. After Earth was his first real flop in years, and worse, his performance was critically panned like Jaden's was. His next few films received mixed to negative reviews, but they were still fairly successful. He played Deadshot in the DC Extended Universe film Suicide Squad (2016). It made a nice profit despite being roundly rejected by critics while Smith's performance was one of the film's few lauded aspects. After suffering a slight stumble with the Box Office Bomb Collateral Beauty and the critically panned Netflix exclusive Bright, Smith was cast as the Genie in Disney's Aladdin (2019). While the casting choice initially raised some controversy, he proved he was able to live up to Robin Williams' legendary performance with his unique take on the character. It made over $1 billion at the box office, surpassing Independence Day to become Smith's highest-grossing film. While his next release after Aladdin, Gemini Man, tanked both critically and commercially, he quickly regained footing in early 2020 with Bad Boys for Life, which became the highest-grossing entry in the franchise and the biggest January release of all time. Smith would seemingly restore his critical respectability with his role as Richard Williams in the 2021 biopic King Richard, for which he won an Oscar. However, his shocking behavior during the awards ceremony, where he slugged Chris Rock onstage after the comedian made an insulting joke directed at Jada Pinkett Smith, overshadowed the victory and led to his resignation from the Academy. Some of Smith's projects have been postponed following the incident, while he has been banned from attending the Oscars for ten years. His next film Emancipation was released in December 2022 to a mixed reception.
• The terrible reception Alone in the Dark (2005) got with critics and moviegoers signified the end for both Christian Slater and Tara Reid as marquee names in films, reducing them to TV and Direct to Video territory. While Slater found success on the small screen with Mr. Robot, Reid became fodder for paparazzi and reality TV mockery before appearing in the Cult Classic Sharknado franchise. Though not acclaimed for their quality, the films were popular for their Camp B-Movie nature and became a big hit on Syfy.
• While American Pie made the teen actors involved with it into stars, most of them suffered from derailed careers as a result of box-office flops during the early-mid '00s, in what's sometimes been called the "American Pie curse". Jason Biggs and Chris Klein were the hardest-hit (though Biggs did have a minor Career Resurrection in the early '10s with Orange Is the New Black), though Tara Reid, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Mena Suvari, Shannon Elizabeth, Alyson Hannigan, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Seann William Scott also suffered from it; more detail on their post-Pie career woes can be found both within this page and under Film Actors and Film Actresses.
  • The Pie curse extends to directors as well. Outside of the Weitz brothers, every director of the series has seen negative effects on their career. The second film's director didn't direct another film for eight years, the third film's director made one more film before disappearing, and the Direct to Video installments had directors with already dead careers.
• Another You (1991) wrecked the film careers of its two stars, Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.
  • Wilder was one of the most, if not the most, beloved comedic actors of all time from the late 1960s through the early 1980s, gaining prominence in The Producers, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. However, his momentum soon lost steam when he appeared in the critical and commercial flop Haunted Honeymoon. Wilder attempted to make a comeback with longtime comedy partner Richard Pryor in the film See No Evil, Hear No Evil, but despite being a moderate success at the box office, it wasn't well-received. Finally, Another You was ravaged by critics and flopped at the box office. Wilder's only notable roles after this were two well received Cash Carter Mystery television films (which were derailed due to a Genre Shift on the network that aired them, A&E), and guest starring on two episodes of Will & Grace; shortly after this appearance, he retired.
  • In the late 1980s, Pryor found himself starring in Moving and the semi-autobiographical Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling (which he also directed), neither of which performed well commercially, the box-office disappointment Harlem Nights and the aforementioned See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Another You turned out to be Pryor's last leading role in a film; he later found success in supporting roles and music.
• The Apple was the film debut of Catherine Mary Stewart and was meant to seal her stardom, but its failure kept her from grabbing the popularity the filmmakers had anticipated. Although she later managed to get her career back on track with roles in The Last Starfighter and Weekend at Bernie's, she never truly satisfied all the hype the film's promotional campaign built her up with. However, she still is well-regarded as a character actress in film and television. Vladek Sheybal, who played the film's villain, wasn't exactly a marquee name, but did accrue praise as a character actor throughout The '60s and The '70s (with a notable role being in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love). Besides a minor role in Red Dawn (1984), he never appeared in a hit film after The Apple failed before his death in 1992.
• The Avengers (1998) – based on the TV show, not the comics – took Ralph Fiennes down temporarily after initially becoming famous in The '90s with Schindler's List and The English Patient. Though he kept steadily working for the next few years, he didn't truly reclaim the eminent profile he had until starring in many films in 2005 like The Constant Gardener and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Uma Thurman also saw her career decline after the infamous Batman & Robin (see below) accelerate with this dud before she was brought back from the brink with Kill Bill. Sean Connery was amid a slight resurgence beginning with his Academy Award-winning performance in The Untouchables before this flop. The mixed response for his next film Entrapment didn't make matters better, although it was more popular than The Avengers thanks to the chemistry between him and leading lady Catherine Zeta-Jones. He managed to redeem himself critically when Finding Forrester got positive reviews in 2000 but retired after The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (see below). In the last years of his life, Connery wrote a memoir titled Being a Scot and accepted some voice-over roles including a Role Reprise as James Bond for the video game version of From Russia with Love.
• Baby Geniuses killed the careers of Christopher Lloyd, Kathleen Turner, Peter MacNicol, and Dom DeLuise. After Baby Geniuses, Lloyd has mostly done Direct to Video and indie movies with limited release and TV work since then. Turner was already on a downslide after V.I. Warshawski, and Geniuses did her career no favors. MacNicol, while not an A-Lister, was getting a decent amount of supporting roles in big movies, but has done mostly TV and voice work since (most notably voicing the Mad Hatter in the Batman: Arkham Series). DeLuise, meanwhile, later went on to do supporting roles in films and television before dying of kidney failure in 2009. Kim Cattrall (thanks to Sex and the City) and Ruby Dee appear to be the only actors whose careers have survived the movie.
  • The sequel, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, was the turning point in Jon Voight's career (he played the lead villain). Before Superbabies, Voight was an Oscar-winning actor who was in successful movies such as Coming Home, Midnight Cowboy, and Deliverance. After Superbabies and Bratz bombed at the box office, he's mostly stuck to independent movies, TV shows, and Direct-to-DVD Baby Geniuses sequels, as well as being associated with the career of his daughter Angelina Jolie. His highest-profile works since then are as Mickey Donovan, Ray's politically incorrect gangster dad in Ray Donovan (for which he won a Golden Globe), and as Senator Henry Shaw for the Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
• Batman & Robin is blamed for the decline of several of its lead actors. Only George Clooney came out comparatively unscathed.
  • George Clooney himself considers the film the low point of his career to this day and treats it as a cautionary tale on not taking a role only for the money. Luckily he would rebound with several major box office hits including The Perfect Storm and Ocean's Eleven that established his stardom in film.
  • Chris O'Donnell's (Robin) case is a subversion, in that he said he had steady work offers, including work on major TV series (such as co-starring in NCIS: Los Angeles alongside LL Cool J), since Batman & Robin, but took some time off around the early '00s to raise his children. He also had the lead role in 2000's Vertical Limit, which, despite garnering mixed reception from critics, grossed over $200 million worldwide in what was otherwise a terrible year for Columbia Pictures.
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger's (Mr. Freeze) drawing power was already in decline by this point, thanks to the disappointing returns of Last Action Hero and Eraser. However, Batman & Robin pretty much finished him off as a bankable star, and his career went From Bad to Worse afterwards thanks to critically-reviled bombs like The Sixth Day and Collateral Damage, culminating in his 'last hurrah' with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and his retirement from acting in order to run for Governor of California. He returned to acting when he left office, and while the first two Expendables films were successful, The Last Stand and Sabotage (2014), his first lead roles in a decade, both came and went without a trace. Terminator Genisys, his return to the franchise that made him a star, finished off his abortive comeback; it met a scathing reception in the US and bombed domestically while making a ton of money overseas (it was the first Terminator not to break $100 million domestically, but the second highest-grossing globally, led by big numbers in China), enough to provoke a reboot with Schwarzenegger returning alongside Linda Hamilton and James Cameron being brought back. Unfortunately, the resulting film, Terminator: Dark Fate, ended up being an even bigger financial flop than Genisys (resulting in a loss of up to $130 million for Paramount Pictures) despite receiving decent reviews.
  • Alicia Silverstone (Batgirl) had this and Excess Baggage, which came out the same year as Batman & Robin and was part of a major production deal that Silverstone had with Columbia Pictures. She tried bouncing back with Blast from the Past, but it still bombed at the box office despite receiving better reviews than both Batman & Robin or Excess Baggage. After that movie, Silverstone never headlined a major Hollywood film again and is now considered a One-Hit Wonder for Clueless. Still, she has kept finding work in Hollywood: she most notably played the main protagonist's mother in the revival of The Baby-Sitters Club (2020).
  • Uma Thurman (Poison Ivy) saw her star fall for years, with an assist from The Avengers (1998)^note based on the '60s British spy show, not the comic book, until Quentin Tarantino pulled one of his trademark Career Resurrections with Kill Bill. Her second wind faded quickly, however, after Motherhood in 2009, one of the biggest Box Office Bombs in history ($726,534 box office proceeds against a $10 million budget) and easily the biggest flop of Thurman's career. It was particularly notable for its British release, where it's the second-biggest flop of all time. It was shown in only one UK cinema and took £88 on its opening weekend. On its opening night it took £9. That's one ticket. Thurman's career has since been limited to television and independent films with only a handful of major roles. It also didn't help that (as revealed years later) she suffered permanent damage to her neck and knees in a car stunt for Kill Bill, which prevented her from taking any similar action roles.
• Battlefield Earth was notoriously received so terribly in 2000, it severely damaged the careers of many actors who starred in it.
  • John Travolta had actually derailed his career once back in The '80s when the Saturday Night Fever sequel Staying Alive was torn to shreds by critics, with his screen prospects being unsteady for several years before clinching a Career Resurrection by starring in Pulp Fiction. Travolta had good luck for the rest of The '90s with numerous successes including Get Shorty and Face/Off. Unfortunately, Battlefield Earth, based off the novel of the same name by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, soon killed all the goodwill Travolta had accumulated. It was a long-gestating passion project for Travolta, being a devout Scientologist who highly regarded Hubbard. Initially planned as the first of a two-part adaptation of the novel, its negative reception instead killed Travolta's hopes for a sequel. Since Battlefield Earth, the majority of his films have been Direct to Video.
  • Barry Pepper, although not a major star like Travolta was, had built up a decent resume with minor roles in hit films such as Saving Private Ryan, Enemy of the State, and The Green Mile. Battlefield Earth was intended to be the movie that would truly certify him as a star to watch, only for its failure to push him back to the periphery. He regained favor on film with roles in critical darlings like 25th Hour, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Flags of Our Fathers, and True Grit (which was also a financial success), but they were often barely profitable. However, he did have a stroke of luck on television after he won an Emmy Award for The Kennedys.
  • Kelly Preston, Travolta's wife, had a solid career throughout the '80s and '90s before starring in this film alongside her husband. Her next major role after Battlefield Earth failed badly was as the children's mother in The Cat in the Hat starring Mike Myers, which was also poorly received. None of her films released during the rest of her lifetime garnered any major praise before dying of breast cancer in 2020, although Sky High has since become a Cult Classic.
  • Forest Whitaker suffered from this disaster the least, having built up esteem with such roles as Charlie Parker in Bird and the title character in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. After Battlefield Earth, he was relegated to the sidelines for the next six years before achieving a Career Resurrection in 2006 with his critically praised performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.
• The Beautician and the Beast brought down both Fran Drescher and Timothy Dalton, who played the title duo. Drescher, already famous on television for The Nanny, tried branching out into the movies with this film, only for its abysmal critical and financial reception to put an end to those hopes. After that movie tanked, she returned to her more reliable venture on TV. Her next theatrical role was Hotel Transylvania in 2012 as the voice of a supporting character. Dalton, meanwhile, was trying to forge a decent career after his tenure as James Bond, with mixed results. After this film bombed, he didn't star in a hit for ten years until Hot Fuzz.
• Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son killed the careers of Martin Lawrence and Brandon T. Jackson.
  • Beforehand, Lawrence was a huge movie star, appearing in movies that rarely got good reviews but did well at the box office. After Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son failed, he stopped acting for three years before appearing in the quickly cancelled series Partners. However, like Will Smith (see above), he had a decent hit with Bad Boys for Life, but only time will tell if that's signaling a Career Resurrection.
  • Brandon T. Jackson looked like a star on the rise with a memorable role as Alpa Chino in Tropic Thunder. Following forgettable roles in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and Lottery Ticket, the death knell for his career came when he played second fiddle to Martin Lawrence's drag shtick. He hasn't done anything noteworthy since that film tanked.
• Bio-Dome destroyed the film careers of both of its stars, Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin. Shore, the son of The Comedy Store co-founders Mitzi and Sammy Shore, was a former MTV VJ who had parlayed his fandom from there to become a minor comedy star in the early-mid '90s, while Baldwin was an up-and-coming actor with roles in films such as Last Exit To Brooklyn, Threesome, 8 Seconds, and The Usual Suspects who was looking to become a successful sibling act to his brother Alec. Then they both starred in this comedy, which opened in 1996 to a critical mauling and a like-minded audience response. Shore's film and television career rapidly declined and to this day, he maintains a steady stand-up comedy career. As for Baldwin, he's been forced to make a living doing Direct to Video films, and (having since become a born-again Christian) he feels that the failure of Bio-Dome and the resultant career damage was God punishing him for his sinful ways (though that hasn't stopped him from talking about a sequel).
• Body of Evidence did severe damage to both its leads' careers, although they luckily were able to reclaim or retain their stature in one form or another.
  • Willem Dafoe had a respectable filmography before this film, with particular praise for his Oscar-nominated performance in Oliver Stone's Platoon and portraying Jesus in Martin Scorsese's controversial yet critically acclaimed The Last Temptation of Christ. After co-starring with Madonna in this horrible 1993 erotic thriller, Dafoe practically vanished for the next couple of years. He popped up sporadically in lesser supporting roles before experiencing a Career Resurrection with another Oscar-nominated performance in Shadow of the Vampire, then as the Green Goblin in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.
  • Madonna had a few of these throughout her acting career, at least once per decade. Body of Evidence snuffed her '90s film career after she recovered some credibility on film with the successes of Dick Tracy and A League of Their Own. She made another small comeback after Evita became a hit, only for her film career to die for good when Swept Away (see below) bombed big time. At least she still had her music.
• Although Chloë Sevigny hasn't been hard up in obtaining TV and movie roles ever since The Brown Bunny (in which she performed unsimulated fellatio), she has now successfully blown off any mainstream cinematic success in the process. Vincent Gallo's career also went limp following its failure, which was worsened by his hostility towards critics (most notoriously getting caught into a vicious war of words with Roger Ebert).
• Apart from killing the cinematic and musical careers of its alleged stars, Can't Stop the Music also ruined the movie careers of most of the stars, particularly Valerie Perrine and Caitlin Jenner, both of whom earned nominations at the first Golden Raspberry Awards.
• Christmas with the Kranks not only brought Tim Allen's film career to the brink of ruin in 2004 before Zoom and The Shaggy Dog (see below) finished the job two years later, but also led Jamie Lee Curtis to take a four-year acting hiatus. When she returned to the screen, it was in films that were critically panned and/or financially bombed such as Beverly Hills Chihuahua and You Again. Curtis worked primarily in independent films and television shows for several years after You Again, before achieving a proper Career Resurrection upon reprising her iconic role of Laurie Strode in the sequel/reboot of Halloween (2018). Five years later, she won an Academy Award for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
• Clifford killed the careers of both Charles Grodin and Martin Short.
  • Grodin, a popular comedic actor from The '70s to The '90s, was in hits like The Heartbreak Kid (1972), Heaven Can Wait (1978), and Midnight Run. After Clifford, he didn't act in another movie for twelve years and became a political commentator/talk show host on CNBC instead. Grodin resumed acting in the mid-2000s popping up in numerous supporting roles, before retiring in 2017 and dying in 2021.
  • Short, meanwhile, first became famous as an icon of sketch comedy through his work on SCTV (joining near the fourth season's end and remaining on it until it finished its run in 1984) and Saturday Night Live (jumping on board right after SCTV was done and bringing over a few roles from there to his new show). He left SNL after one season (despite his presence being praised as a highlight during one of the show's more divisive times) to pursue a career in film, and had some success starring alongside his close friend Steve Martin in ¡Three Amigos! and Father of the Bride (1991). Unfortunately, Clifford became the first of several big flops for Short: Mars Attacks!, Jungle 2 Jungle, and A Simple Wish followed soon afterwards. Although he'd later find success in the theater (most notably with his Tony-winning role in The Producers), Short's screen career remained active only through voice-over roles on film (with an occasional live-action role like The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause here and there) and returning to host (or make surprise appearances) on SNL. Like frequent collaborator Steve Martin, Short experienced a resurgence starring alongside Selena Gomez in Only Murders in the Building.
• Cop Out more or less killed the careers of Seann William Scott and Tracy Morgan. Bruce Willis was able to stave off any damage this flop caused with supporting roles in Moonrise Kingdom and Looper, only to have his career to be killed off soon after (see Film Actors for more details on his fall).
  • Scott has only done independent films and sequels to American Pie and Ice Age before eventually returning to television in 2018, replacing Clayne Crawford in the TV adaptation of Lethal Weapon. However, it was cancelled only one season into Scott's tenure on the show.
  • Morgan has only had the Rio movies or 30 Rock since. His controversial comments about how he would kill his son if he found out he was gay probably didn't help his career either. Morgan's car accident made the public see him in a more favorable light, but it's unlikely that the goodwill he's received following it will translate into a Career Resurrection film-wise any time soon. He has since appeared in a starring role on The Last OG to critical acclaim.
• The failure of The Crew (2000) eroded the careers of its geriatric leads.
  • Burt Reynolds was once of the biggest movie stars in the world, becoming famous as an icon of masculinity and a hunky sex symbol in The '70s. While he sporadically starred in an occasional dud like Stroker Ace (which killed the career of his co-star Loni Anderson) or Cop and a Half, they never kept him down for long as his career prospered in the next decades. Reynolds was coming off of a career high after his Academy Award-nominated supporting performance in Boogie Nights when he appeared in The Crew, but it subsequently became the last film where he played a leading role. His theatrical releases afterwards (Driven, The Dukes of Hazzard, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, etc.) were mostly reviled, with the bulk of his input until his death in 2018 being Direct to Video trash.
  • Seymour Cassel started out acting for independent filmmaker John Cassavetes, becoming a frequent collaborator in his films (notably getting an Oscar nomination for his role in Faces). He gradually carved a niche as a supporting actor, but his efforts at headlining a film like this one flopped. Cassel didn't headline another movie before his death in 2019, but did become an early collaborator of director Wes Anderson: appearing in his films Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
  • Richard Dreyfuss appeared in many classics (American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc.) ever since his acting career also started in the '70s, later winning an Oscar for The Goodbye Girl and getting another nomination for Mr. Holland's Opus. Dreyfuss didn't star in another blockbuster for six years after The Crew, and the failure of that blockbuster – Poseidon – sunk his credibility even further.
  • Dan Hedaya got off rather easily, as he remained a successful character actor before and after the fact.
• Cutthroat Island not only was a studio-destroying disaster, it negatively affected the careers of its two stars, Geena Davis and Matthew Modine.
  • Davis achieved her breakthrough in the '80s, winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in The Accidental Tourist, then followed it up with her iconic turn (and Oscar-nominated role) in Thelma & Louise. Her star began to fade a few years later with Angie and Speechless. Cutthroat Island was supposed to be a vehicle by her then-husband Renny Harlin to reinvent Davis as an action star, but it ended up being the final straw for her A-List career after the film ended up being one of the biggest box office disasters in history. It didn't help matters that Davis immediately regretted accepting the part when it became apparent that it was doomed to fail and tried to back out, only to remain on the project due to contractual obligations. After this film, Davis and Harlin collaborated again on The Long Kiss Goodnight, which fared better commercially but still lost money, and on top of that, the two divorced a few years later. Davis then retreated to television, with the occasional supporting role in a feature film like Marjorie Prime or Ava.
  • Modine hoped that this would be his breakthrough role as the male lead, originally written for Michael Douglas. He retreated into television since Cutthroat Island tanked; like Davis, film parts were limited to supporting roles. However, he received major attention for the first time in ages for his role on Stranger Things.
• Dead Heat derailed the careers of Joe Piscopo and Treat Williams. Piscopo was a former cast member of Saturday Night Live who held his own during that show's Audience-Alienating Era in the early '80s, getting offered roles in films such as Johnny Dangerously and Wise Guys that weren't successful. Dead Heat was the final nail in the coffin for Piscopo's possible leading man career, subsequently reducing him to supporting roles in cheap kids' movies like Sidekicks in The '90s. He has since gravitated to becoming a right-wing pundit on New York talk radio who has dipped his toes into politics himself. Williams got an initial start with Hair and 1941 in 1979 before he built himself up in The '80s. His hype soon evaporated after Dead Heat bombed, with attempts to regain it like The Phantom (see below) not doing so great.
• Deck the Halls blemished most of its adult cast's careers in 2006 after becoming a massive flop during the Christmas holiday season.
  • Matthew Broderick was a major teen idol back in The '80s with WarGames and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, before being taken more seriously as an actor after starring in the Civil War epic Glory. He had a thriving career for the next few decades, which was strong enough to survive many bad films like Godzilla (1998) and Inspector Gadget (1999). However, Deck the Halls was the last film where he played the leading role. Broderick's screen career has mostly receded into supporting parts afterwards, and he since has focused on stage work to better success.
  • Danny DeVito was in several duds in the 2000s after an impressive run of success in the past decades, but this film was the worst-received of them all. Fortunately, that same year he began starring as Frank Reynolds on the comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. While his film career remains wobbly, he remains a big star on TV.
  • Kristin Chenoweth was already a big icon of the theatre (having won a Tony Award) when she moved to find success on the screen, which began decently on The West Wing. However, the combined failures of Deck the Halls, The Pink Panther, and RV, which got her a joint Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actress, didn't do her potential on film any favors. Although that ship has sailed, she remains a Broadway star and maintains a good television career (with Pushing Daisies (which won her an Emmy Award), Glee, Descendants, Schmigadoon!, etc.).
  • Kristin Davis struggled to find her footing after Sex and the City wrapped up in 2004, beginning with a small part in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Deck the Halls and The Shaggy Dog (see below) bombing in the same year mostly killed her career. Her most prolific acting work since has been reprising her role as Charlotte in the Sex and the City films, then later in the Sequel Series And Just Like That...
• Dirty Love dirtied the careers of most of its cast after the film became a notorious Box Office Bomb (budgeted at $9 million, grossed only $36,099 – yes, that's right – during its theatrical run) and universally skewered by viewers, eventually winning four Razzie Awards including Worst Picture of 2005.
  • Carmen Electra was already recognized as Ms. Fanservice in comedies like Scary Movie and Starsky & Hutch before this flop. Afterwards, she was in Seltzer and Friedberg's movies in various roles. All four of their movies that she starred in apparently snuffed her hype for she's mostly done direct-to-DVD movies and reality TV work since.
  • Kam Heskin also lost the minimal amount of recognition she had after her starring role on the soap opera Sunset Beach. After appearing in Direct to Video sequels to The Prince & Me (replacing Julia Stiles), she hasn't had a role in anything since 2010.
  • Any chances of Jenny McCarthy becoming a movie star was dead in the water after this monumental flop. Her media appearances since have comprised of Made-For-TV Movies, Reality TV, and appearances on programs like The View (as a co-host) or The Masked Singer (as a judge). She recently became infamous for her controversial view on vaccines, becoming a notable anti-vax face.
  • Eddie Kaye Thomas had his career put deeper into the ground with this flop after it was previously battered by Freddy Got Fingered (see below). His career afterwards has been kept on life support via American Pie sequels, along with a supporting role in the Harold and Kumar films. He only rebounded with the CBS series Scorpion (though that isn't saying much, considering that show's reception).
  • Victor Webster co-starred on Sunset Beach alongside Heskin, before further moving into TV with roles on Days of Our Lives and Mutant X. After this massive bomb, his career has remained stuck in a Hallmark Made-for-TV Movie limbo.
• DOA: Dead or Alive left most of its leading ladies' careers dead in the water.
  • Supermodel Devon Aoki previously appeared as Miho in Sin City, with her screen career sinking in 2006 when this film and Zoom (see below) tanked. She only appeared in three films afterwards before retiring in 2009 to focus on motherhood, with her appearances limited to documentary and music video appearances.
  • Sarah Carter stuck to TV after DOA, notably with roles in Shark, Falling Skies, and The Flash (2014).
  • Natassia Malthe's biggest role before this film was in the poorly-received Elektra, with the bulk of her filmography after DOA comprising Direct to Video or television films.
  • Jaime Pressly suffered from this flop the least, having already had a starring television role as Joy on My Name Is Earl and finding more success there as Jill on Mom. Her film career has withered as well, however.
  • Holly Valance had already established herself in her native Australia in the soap opera Neighbours before attempting to establish herself internationally with her role in DOA. Valance's screen career was intermittent afterwards as well; she hasn't starred in any screen projects since 2015.
• Sean Young, Tim Daly, and Lysette Anthony, in 1995, saw their careers flounder after Dr. Jekyll & Ms. Hyde. Young already endured many flops by the beginning of the decade, but this film bombing was the final straw. Along with a string of accusations of stalking actor James Woods and her spectacular failure to nab the part of Catwoman in Batman Returns, she soon attained a reputation as being difficult to work with in Hollywood. Young later dealt with alcoholism and appeared on reality TV shows afterwards. Daly was already known on TV for Wings when he starred in this movie. While this film flopping didn't do his big screen hopes any favors, he maintained a good small screen career after Wings with roles in Private Practice and Madam Secretary. Anthony was trying to reclaim her screen career after Krull (see below) with abysmal results, like the terribly received sequel Look Who's Talking Now. This flop, combined with the equally maligned Dracula: Dead and Loving It released the same year, put an end to those efforts. Anthony mainly stars nowadays in British soap operas like Hollyoaks.
• The careers of Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier as movie stars started and died when Drive Me Crazy got a generally negative reception. Their largest film roles since then have been in God's Not Dead 2 for Hart (which wasn't well received beyond its target Christian demographic), and The Devil Wears Prada for Grenier (whose performance as the main character's boyfriend was one of the more maligned). Luckily, their TV work remained strong with three hit shows for Hart while Grenier had Entourage. Grenier later tried reviving his film career by appearing in the Entourage movie, but it went nowhere after that flopped.
• Drop Dead Fred killed the careers of Phoebe Cates and Rik Mayall.
  • Cates, an '80s sex symbol, only did two more films before retiring from acting to focus on raising her kids. She briefly came out of retirement in 2001 to take a supporting role in The Anniversary Party as a personal favor to its director, her Fast Times at Ridgemont High co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh.
  • Mayall, who was a star in the United Kingdom and had a cult following in the United States stemming from his work on The Young Ones, intended for this film to be his breakout Hollywood role. After this and Carry On Columbus, however, he went straight back to television. Guest House Paradiso was also a flop, and Rik and Adrian Edmondson never appeared in any other films^note Mayall's cameo as Peeves in the first Harry Potter film was cut but Edmondson appeared in a small role in The Last Jedi. (they continued to find steady work in television, although separately rather than together after Bottom finished).
• The failure of Dungeons & Dragons (2000) wrecked most of its younger stars' careers.
  • Thora Birch became famous during The '90s as a child actress with Patriot Games, Hocus Pocus, and Clear and Present Danger. American Beauty seemingly marked her transition into a successful adult actress, only for Dungeons & Dragons to snuff that chance at once. On top of this, her father, Jack, also contributed to her career's decline as he cost her roles with his on-set meddling, yet she refused to dismiss him. After the D&D film flopped, she starred in Ghost World and The Hole. The former was praised by critics and became a Cult Classic, but audiences stayed away. The latter saw theatrical release in the UK but went straight to DVD in the US and garnered mixed reviews. Neither earned more than $10 million globally. She has since found a new manager (they are now married) but her acting career has stagnated, while her most significant work since was a recurring role on The Walking Dead.
  • Zoe McLellan had an unremarkable career in television before she was cast in this film in a botched attempt at a Star-Making Role. While her film career hit a dead end, she did find more success on television when she was cast in JAG a year later. She remained on JAG all the way until it completed its run in 2005, transitioning quickly with Dirty Sexy Money two years later. However, that success was fleeting as her TV appearances after the latter ended were near exclusively guest parts. She did star in NCIS: New Orleans, but abruptly departed after two seasons. After a season-long stint on Designated Survivor and some made-for-TV films, she hasn't appeared in any projects since 2019. Not helping matters was the legal battle she got embroiled in with her ex-husband regarding custody of their son, a scandal which further developed after her ex was arrested on alleged charges of child abuse. As of July 2021, McLellan is currently wanted for kidnapping and has virtually vanished from the public eye.
  • Justin Whalin was best known at the time for replacing original actor Alex Vincent as Andy Barclay in Child's Play 3 and his supporting role as Jimmy Olsen in Lois & Clark. After D&D tanked, he starred in films that never saw a general release or otherwise went Direct to Video before he retired in 2009. Since then, he has become a social studies/drama teacher at a Los Angeles prep school.
  • Marlon Wayans seemingly suffered from this film's failure the least, having in that same year starred in the critically acclaimed Requiem for a Dream and the commercially successful Scary Movie. He also co-wrote the latter film's script. However, his career soon died when he starred in and co-wrote White Chicks and Little Man with his brother Shawn. Most of his releases afterwards (Norbit, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, A Haunted House, Fifty Shades of Black, etc.) were also skewered too.
• The 2014 remake of Endless Love killed the careers of Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde. They were promising young talents who, admittedly, were in movies with so-so box office and critical performances. But Endless Love was the last straw, as neither starred in a mainstream film afterwards. Pettyfer has stuck to independent films and Wilde mostly stuck to TV, although she did have a bit part in Wonder Woman 1984.
• The outright failure of Fair Game (1995) brought William Baldwin down during The '90s (after his reputation was dented two years before by Sliver), with none of his roles since matching the success he had earlier in his career. Fair Game was also intended to establish Cindy Crawford as a movie star after she became famous for modeling, only to kill that potential career before it could even start.
• The colossal disaster of Fantastic Four (2015) wrecked the careers of most of its young up-and-coming stars, with only Michael B. Jordan avoiding lasting damage after he rebounded spectacularly with Creed a few months later (and then three years later with his role in Black Panther).
  • Miles Teller saw the hype he gained with the first two profitable Divergent films combined with the lauded The Spectacular Now and Whiplash evaporate overnight when this film tanked. His follow-up films either underperformed (The Divergent Series: Allegiant, War Dogs, Get a Job) or outright tanked (Bleed for This, Only the Brave, Thank You For Your Service)^note although on the bright side, all three of these films were acclaimed. A cover interview he did for Esquire magazine further hurt his prospects, since it portrayed him in an unflattering light. The abysmal performance of this film is what allegedly got Teller dropped from La La Land, which would have reunited him with Whiplash director Damien Chazelle (however, that might be untrue as production for La La Land started filming at the same time as this film's release, while Teller himself claimed he withdrew from the film due to his commitments in Allegiant and Bleed for This). After Thank You For Your Service was released in late 2017, Teller didn't appear in a film for five years; in fact, he didn't appear in any screen project at all besides the 2019 crime drama miniseries Too Old to Die Young created by Nicolas Winding Refn. While his first project of 2022 (The Offer) received a mixed reception, he co-starred opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick. Although the sequel was a massive hit, it was still mainly considered Cruise's show.
  • Toby Kebbell had intermittently popped up in projects in his native Britain when he gained greater exposure with the widely acclaimed Black Mirror episode The Entire History of You, along with his performance as the main antagonist in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. He claimed offers dried up after this film's release, while all four films he starred in the next year underperformed to varying degrees. Warcraft (2016) was a Box Office Bomb that did well enough overseas to make up for a poor stateside performance, while A Monster Calls was an Acclaimed Flop. Ben-Hur (2016) and Gold, however, were box office bombs without even positive reviews or good overseas returns to compensate for their failure. At the very least, he had success with supporting roles in the Sleeper Hit Kong: Skull Island and reprising his role in War for the Planet of the Apes. His biggest leading role since was in the M. Night Shyamalan-produced streaming series Servant.
  • Kate Mara had a rough start to her career when she starred in Zoom (see below), but remained steady with supporting roles in Brokeback Mountain, 127 Hours, and particularly her Emmy Award-nominated performance in House of Cards (US). While this film failed, she recovered slightly with The Martian and a return appearance to Cards. Her critical esteem healed further with praised work in Megan Leavey, Pose, and A Teacher (2020), but Fantastic Four was the last big-budget blockbuster she headlined.
  • Jamie Bell appeared throughout the years in many well-received films, with his biggest success coming from playing the title role in The Adventures of Tintin (2011). His next role after Fantastic Four bombed was two years later starring opposite Annette Bening in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, which became an Acclaimed Flop. He also starred in the AMC period drama Turn for all four seasons, and appeared as Bernie Taupin in the Elton John biopic Rocketman (2019).
• Freddy Got Fingered (which was widely hated by viewers, made $14 million on a $14 million budget, and won five Razzie Awards including Worst Picture of 2001) pretty much killed the career of Tom Green, who wrote, directed, and starred in it. Eddie Kaye Thomas would also find his prospects reduced by this film's failure, along with that of Dirty Love (see above). Julie Hagerty, who played the main character's mother, saw her career whittle down to bit parts on film and TV after she got nominated for a Razzie too. Her most prolific work since then was as the mother of Scarlett Johansson's character in Marriage Story.
• The winner (Kelly Clarkson) and runner-up (Justin Guarini) of the first season of American Idol were forced to act in the tie-in movie From Justin to Kelly, which was an infamous critical and popular bomb. Kelly's talent and appeal helped her survive that disaster, as she went on to sell 25 million albums globally and become one of the biggest music stars of the 2000s (though, without question, it's a major Old Shame for her), but Guarini's potential career was totally derailed, and he became the most notorious laughingstock in the show's Top 10 until Sanjaya Malakar. The only actor whose career escaped from the shadow of this dud was Anika Noni Rose, who won a Tony Award shortly after this film was released. Rose has since starred in Dreamgirls, The Princess and the Frog, and Maid.

G-K

• While Green Lantern (2011) brought Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively together leading to Romance on the Set (and eventually, marriage and kids), it really did a number on both of them career-wise.
  • Reynolds, who started his career with the TV series Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, transitioned into film by portraying the titular Van Wilder, which became a popular box office hit despite negative reviews from critics. Though the bulk of his following films (Blade: Trinity, The Amityville Horror (2005), Just Friends, Smokin' Aces, The Proposal, etc.) also got a mixed critical reception, their stellar performance at the box office and popularity with audiences made Reynolds a superstar. It also made his more critically appreciated work like Buried further stand out, while his turn as Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine before that film's final act was praised as a possibly good rendition killed by bad writing. However, studios' faith in Reynolds faltered when Green Lantern failed big time. After R.I.P.D. and Turbo bombed upon release on the same weekend in 2013, many folks spent some years convinced Reynolds shouldn't headline any major films. Luckily, performing a more comic-accurate Wade Wilson/Deadpool for a couple of CGI tests won fan acclaim and heavy attention. This eventually resulted in him starring in an actual Deadpool film, which broke many box office records upon release in February 2016. Among the records Deadpool blew away included the largest opening weekends in Fox's history as well as for an R-rated film.
  • Lively's debut role was in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (which she eventually reprised for its sequel) before she truly became a household name with Gossip Girl. Though The Town seemed to mark her shift from another Teen Idol to a serious actress, the failure of Green Lantern temporarily short-circuited her potential and put her career at deep risk. When Lively's films following Green Lantern underperformed too, she took a hiatus in 2012 to focus on making a lifestyle brand called Preserve. She resumed acting after Preserve folded within a year and soon enjoyed a comeback: with The Age of Adaline, The Shallows, and A Simple Favor. Then in early 2020, she headlined The Rhythm Section, which got a tepid reception and became a massive Box Office Bomb that only raked up $6 million on a budget of around $50 million. It ended up pulling out of nearly 3,000 theaters by its third weekend, although COVID-19 definitely played a part as well.
• Gulliver's Travels (2010) not only battered Jack Black's career further after the failure of Year One in 2009 (see below), it also negatively impacted Emily Blunt. Blunt was obligated to do this film as part of her contract for being in The Devil Wears Prada, a stipulation which unfortunately forced her to decline many prolific roles (most notably Black Widow in Iron Man 2^note and all the Marvel Cinematic Universe films that followed). She then began fading from the spotlight into supporting roles before undergoing a Career Resurrection with 2014's Edge of Tomorrow and Into the Woods.
• Halloween: Resurrection, in addition to being a Franchise Killer for the Halloween series, killed the careers of most of the people involved.
  • Thomas Ian Nicholas was perhaps the hardest hit. His hype from American Pie vanished overnight, and he was relegated to doing bit parts, indie films, and Direct to Video films.
  • Sean Patrick Thomas also lost pretty much all the attention he'd earned from Save the Last Dance, and has barely been seen in anything since.
  • Bianca Kajlich was relegated to TV movies, short-lived TV shows, and bit parts for five years. She wouldn't score a major role again until she was cast on Rules of Engagement in 2007, and wouldn't appear in another theatrically-released film until 30 Minutes or Less in 2011.
  • In fact, it would probably be easier to list those actors whose careers didn't suffer from this film flopping. Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks weren't actors by trade to begin with (the former was a rapper, the latter a supermodel), so they went back to what they'd been doing before. Jamie Lee Curtis only made a cameo, while Katee Sackhoff scored her Star-Making Role just one year later.
• The two films in Rob Zombie's Halloween reboot series, which were both panned by critics and highly polarizing among fans of the franchise, seem to have done this to the careers of Scout Taylor-Compton and Danielle Harris, who played Laurie and Annie. Both have been typecast as Scream Queens since (especially Harris, who had a successful film, TV, and voiceover career beforehand), with most of their filmography composed of horror films. Halloween II is (as of now) the last film either actress has made that's even close to being mainstream.
• Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man brought down both Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson, who played the titular duo in this 1991 biker film.
  • Rourke, with several hits like Diner, Rumble Fish, 9½ Weeks, and Angel Heart, was once one of the biggest rising stars in The '80s. Unfortunately, he also suffered from substance abuse problems and a temper on set which alienated cast and crew alike. His decline started the previous year from headlining the reviled failures Wild Orchid and Desperate Hours, which gave him Worst Actor nominations at the Golden Raspberry Awards. Rourke took an acting hiatus when this film bombed to pursue boxing and held a decent record for three years, before quitting in 1994. He then resumed acting with overall mixed results before Robert Rodriguez cast him in Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Sin City. This almost resulted in a comeback when Rourke got critical praise (including an Academy Award nomination) for his lead role in The Wrestler, leading to roles in blockbusters like Iron Man 2 and The Expendables. Sadly, the subsequent flops of Immortals and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For killed that comeback opportunity and reduced Rourke to Direct to Video films afterwards.
  • Johnson was well-known on television via Miami Vice when he tried becoming a movie star with this film, only for its failure to derail his film and television career for a couple of years. He rebounded on television with Nash Bridges, while his film career mostly remained active with supporting roles in Django Unchained and Knives Out.
• Aside from the studio and director Michael Cimino, Heaven's Gate managed to have a few more casualties.
  • Singer Kris Kristofferson had forged a successful acting career for most of the 1970s with lead roles in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, the 1976 version of A Star Is Born, and Convoy. However, he was cast as the protagonist in Heaven's Gate, and his career was one of many left in ruins by the film's Troubled Production and dismal box office take. He returned his attention to his music career, and his film career has since been limited to supporting roles (most notably in the Blade trilogy as the title character's mentor, Abraham Whistler, as well as in Fast Food Nation, the antagonist in the theatrical version of Payback, and Fallout: New Vegas).
  • After achieving success in her native France and winning a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for La Dentelliere, Isabelle Huppert took on her first role in an American film with Heaven's Gate. Unfortunately, that derailed her chance of an international breakthrough, and she never starred in a big American film again. However, she has remained successful in France, holding the record as the most nominated actress for the César Award. Despite never becoming a superstar or a recognized name in the United States, she does have a reputation as an arthouse regular and a critics' favorite there, and she was nominated for an Oscar for the first time for 2016's Elle.
• Holmes & Watson derailed the star power of its leads Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, who played the titular duo. Having twice collaborated on the hit comedies Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers, Holmes & Watson was expected to become a similar success in Christmas 2018. It instead became a notorious Box Office Bomb (budgeted around and ultimately grossing $42 million globally) with an abysmal reception from moviegoers in general. It would eventually nab six Golden Raspberry Award nominations, winning four including Worst Picture of that year. Reilly, who started out as a character actor, continued finding success as one (gaining praise for his role as Oliver Hardy in the biopic Stan & Ollie, also released in 2018, and his role as Jerry Buss in the 2022 HBO sports drama Winning Time). Ferrell, meanwhile, found more work as a supporting actor, like in Barbie (2023). Films where he plays a leading role range from mediocre, like Downhill or Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, to decent enough, like Spirited (2022).
• Houseguest killed the careers of Sinbad and Phil Hartman.
  • In the early '90s, Sinbad had done some supporting roles in movies like Necessary Roughness and Coneheads, leading Hollywood to give him lead roles in Houseguest and First Kid. Both those films flopped, and he didn't lead another movie again. In fact, he only did two more movies period (Jingle All the Way and Good Burger) before fading into obscurity. It took him sixteen years (Planes) for him to be in another theatrically-released movie again.
  • Houseguest was also Phil Hartman's only leading role. Before, he was only doing supporting parts in movies, and after, he went back to being a supporting actor until his untimely death three years later.
• Impostor derailed the film careers of Gary Sinise and Madeleine Stowe in the early 2000s.
  • Sinise had established himself as a character actor in The '90s: first by directing and starring in an adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men in 1992, then with supporting roles in Academy Award-nominated films like Forrest Gump (which he got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for), Apollo 13, and The Green Mile. However, his career started slipping in 2000 when films such as Mission to Mars and Reindeer Games tanked. After Impostor became a critically mauled Box Office Bomb, Sinise's film career has consisted of documentary appearances and voice-only roles (with a sporadic live-action supporting role then and now). He luckily found success on television: first with CSI: NY, followed by Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, then 13 Reasons Why.
  • Stowe, a prominent leading lady in the '90s, notably played the female leads in critical and/or popular hit films such as Unlawful Entry, The Last of the Mohicans, and 12 Monkeys. After Impostor failed, she took a hiatus to raise her family before returning with a role on the television series Revenge. While she found her niche on TV, her film career has remained stagnant.
• The 1980 religious satire In God We Tru$t destroyed two careers, those of Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman. Before that, Boyle headlined classics like Joe (1970), Young Frankenstein, and Taxi Driver and Feldman was a top comedy star in his home country of England (and also worked with Boyle on Young Frankenstein). Then this movie, co-written and directed by Feldman, was largely panned by critics and flopped at the box office. Both Feldman and Boyle's careers went downhill thereafter, and both tried to bounce back with Yellowbeard, co-starring with the Monty Python troupe; unfortunately, Feldman suddenly died of a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico before he could finish his role, consequently resulting in his character getting killed off in the movie. The film opened to mixed reception and flopped instantly, failing to help either Feldman or Boyle experience a Career Resurrection (Executive Meddling from Hemdale and Orion didn't seem to help either.)
  • Boyle would not finally experience a resurrection until he guest-starred in an episode of The X-Files, which he won an Emmy Award for, and he finally got cast into the television sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, which earned him two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations and one Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Boyle was on the verge of derailment again with The Santa Clause 3, but in a twist of fate, he died of heart disease just a month after its release.
  • The film also damaged the hopes of Andy Kaufman having a successful film career, though his fall wouldn't come until later. See Film Actors for more details.
• The 1980 version of The Jazz Singer dealt a particularly strong blow to its star Neil Diamond, and weakened the career of co-star Laurence Olivier (although the latter had the final blow dealt with Inchon two years later). For the rest of The '80s, Diamond also had some difficulty maintaining a successful musical career.
• Krull took down both Lysette Anthony and Ken Marshall's careers. Marshall was supposed to make it to the big time with this 1983 sci-fi swashbuckler fantasy, following his acclaimed role in the miniseries Marco Polo. But when the film utterly bombed, Marshall didn't take another acting job for four years. His filmography upon his return comprised near-exclusively of many guest appearances on numerous TV shows, most notably with a recurring spot on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Meanwhile, Anthony was already known for her work on the British stage when she starred in this film. Her momentum didn't recover either when it bombed.

L-P

• The Last Airbender battered the careers of Jackson Rathbone and Noah Ringer (the latter with help from Cowboys & Aliens). Besides Twilight sequels, Rathbone hasn't been seen in many movies. Nicola Peltz's career has kept going with supporting roles in Bates Motel and Transformers: Age of Extinction, but in her case she has the help of her investor father Nelson. Dev Patel has also kept on working in independent projects, but nowhere near what was hoped after his Star-Making Role in Slumdog Millionaire. However, this changed for the better with his highly acclaimed performance in Lion, and his subsequent Oscar nomination for it, with projects like Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield and David Lowery’s The Green Knight on the horizon.
  • Like Peltz, Seychelle Gabriel's career wasn't tarnished by the film since several critics and fans considered her performance as Princess Yue as one of the few positive things about the film. Indeed, this later resulted in her playing Lourdes in the TNT TV series Falling Skies and voicing Asami in the source material's Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, which served as a Star-Making Role for her and Bryan and Mike even note that getting to meet Seychelle was one of the few bright spots that came from this train wreck. Cliff Curtis and Shaun Toub's careers also were unaffected by the film, especially the former having a lead role in The Walking Dead spin-off Fear the Walking Dead.
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was infamous for not only being the final movie Sean Connery starred in before retiring, but also being reviled enough to kill the careers of most of its cast, most notably Peta Wilson, who had previously established herself as a star on the La Femme Nikita TV series before she played Mina Harker in the film; Naseeruddin Shah, who was meant to break out into Hollywood with this film after establishing himself as a significant figure in Bollywood; and Shane West, who was recently coming off of major exposure from A Walk to Remember. It also killed Stephen Norrington's directing career, who hasn't helmed another film since.
  • Connery was offered the chance to reprise his role in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but turned it down, saying that retirement was too much fun.
• The Legend of Hercules killed the careers of Kellan Lutz and Gaia Weiss, who respectively garnered Golden Raspberry Award nominations for Worst Actor and Worst Actress. It received a universally negative reception and became a notable Box Office Bomb of 2014, probably because it was overshadowed by the much better-received Hercules (2014) starring Dwayne Johnson. Lutz, who was majorly hyped up after his role as Emmett Cullen in the Twilight films, and Weiss, who was attempting to make it in Hollywood after establishing herself as a model in her native France, have done little of note since.
• The 2013 adaptation of The Lone Ranger derailed the careers of both its stars.
  • The first was Armie Hammer, who played the title character. He initially gained notice after playing the Winkelvoss twins in The Social Network, only to see his hype vanish overnight after this film, which performed very poorly against Disney's expectations of their next big franchise. His next shot at a big-budget blockbuster, a 2015 film adaptation of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. directed by Guy Ritchie, received decent but unspectacular reviews and pretty much sank without a trace at the box office. While his critical respectability was restored by his acclaimed performance in Call Me by Your Name in 2017, it will probably be a while before he's again seen as leading-man material in a big blockbuster. He’s comfortable in arthouse fare and period dramas like Sorry to Bother You, On the Basis of Sex, Wounds, and Rebecca.
    • However, this second wind as a handsome character actor and indie star has been also cut short as a result of disturbing accusations of rape, emotional abuse, and bizarre cannibal fantasies. His final film will likely be Death on the Nile (2022).
  • The bigger long-term career casualty was that of Johnny Depp, who played Tonto. After spending the '90s and early '00s as an acclaimed yet B-list actor in indie films, low-budget dramas, and quirky comedies, Depp hit the big time with the Pirates of the Caribbean films in the mid-late '00s, with him and his character, Captain Jack Sparrow, becoming pop culture icons thanks to his "pirate Keith Richards" performance. During the time that the Pirates films were successful, nearly every other role that Depp took was a megahit that brought audiences out just to see him, and he became especially known for his multiple collaborations with director Tim Burton (the two had been close friends since they made Edward Scissorhands).
    
    However, backlash started to build in the early 2010s, with Alice in Wonderland (2010) being heavily criticized (while it was a massive box-office success, it was notably one of the last films where he had a major role that did so) and films like The Rum Diary and Dark Shadows flopping outright. The Lone Ranger was the turning point in his public image, with his performance in particular singled out as one of the film's bigger problems and the film becoming a legendary Box Office Bomb. Most of his work since has disappointed critically and commercially, such as the critically-savaged bombs Transcendence and Mortdecai. In 2016, he slipped even further, not only starring in yet another major bomb in the form of Alice Through the Looking Glass, but also being hit with accusations of Domestic Abuse by his ex-wife Amber Heard, causing much of his heretofore-ironclad female fanbase to desert him. But Depp hasn't thrown in the towel just yet; he has attempted comeback roles since but to no avail. First, he reprised his iconic role as Jack Sparrow in the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film, Dead Men Tell No Tales, but it was unfavorably received by critics and failed to reach the fiscal success of its predecessors. He was set to play the title character in the Dark Universe's re-imagining of The Invisible Man, but it was cancelled by Universal after the Dark Universe fell apart following the critical and commercial failure of its one and only installment, The Mummy (2017), with the rights being handed over to Blumhouse Productions, Depp being replaced by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and being reworked by Leigh Whannell into a low-budget thriller focusing on the Invisible Man's victim with a domestic abuse angle, which proved much more profitable than The Mummy. He also played the murder victim in Murder on the Orient Express (2017) which got mixed reviews but recouped its budget. He played a detective in City Of Lies about the unsolved murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G., which was pulled from the schedule only a month before it was due to be released in late 2018 due to Depp being sued for allegedly punching a location manager before it was eventually dumped in early 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He had been cast in secret in 2015 for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them but his role was really just a glorified cameo and although the film was critically and financially successful, the cameo itself wasn't well-received. The second film, The Crimes of Grindelwald, where he had an expanded role ended up being the lowest grossing of all Wizarding World films (until the third film ran into bad luck with real-world events like the COVID-19 pandemic)^note  It had the misfortune of having its Russian release cancelled at the last minute and opening during a huge COVID-19 wave in China, both of which are huge markets for the series and received mixed reviews (although ironically, this go-around he was considered a highlight of the film). He was later fired during the production of The Secrets of Dumbledore in the fall of 2020 after losing a very damaging civil lawsuit about his alleged abuse of Heard in the UK ^note  The judge found the allegations “substantially true” which means that all things considered, there was a greater than 50% chance that they happened. He found 12 of the 14 instances used by the defense to meet this standard. One instance was inconclusive and one didn’t have a full deposition so it wasn’t ruled on. and was very quickly replaced by Mads Mikkelsen. He was finally able to book a new project in early 2022 in a small French film. Depp had better luck in a case in the US directly against Heard albeit in split decision with both of them having found to have defamed each other. Depp was awarded $10 million and she was awarded $2 million. However, about six months after the end of the trial they ended up settling before both of their appeals really began. Heard ended up paying him $1 million via her insurance without admitting to any wrongdoing or having to sign an NDA. This was after Depp’s own fans had paid to unseal documents that among other things had him saying she’d never abused him to avoid having to sit for a psychological evaluation, Heard’s suppressed medical records of being treated for her injuries, his records that backed up her claim of sexual assault, and other evidence that he’d been fired by Disney for his behavior three years before the op-ed he sued her over. Due to all of this plus the aforementioned sexual assault claims now being public (Heard had previously only told the judge in the UK in closed court), it’s unlikely to have changed anything at least when it comes to studio films.
• Paparazzi left a swath of damaged careers in its wake after becoming a poorly reviewed Box Office Bomb.
  • Cole Hauser had previously appeared in several films in a supporting capacity, but his attempt at playing the lead failed after this film bombed. His career since has mostly floundered into action B-movie territory, although he recently gained some positive notices playing Rip Wheeler on Yellowstone.
  • Robin Tunney starred in a slew of flops following her Star-Making Role in The Craft, but she never had a major film role after this one. She's kept working on television, though: first with roles in Prison Break, and then The Mentalist.
  • Daniel Baldwin left Homicide: Life on the Street to follow his brothers into film, only to star in several ill-received flops like Mulholland Falls and John Carpenter's Vampires. Besides a little part in Grey Gardens, the bulk of his input after Paparazzi either is low-budget schlock or reality TV.
  • While Tom Sizemore did suffer some career damage with this film, what really crippled him were his uncontrollable drug addictions and incessant legal issues. He was frequently carted in and out of rehab, plus he also became a subject for more reality TV exposure. Besides a recurring role on the Twin Peaks revival series in 2017, his career was erratic before he died of a brain aneurysm in 2023.
• The Phantom (1996) did in most of its stars. Billy Zane seemed to have moved past this film's failure with his role as Cal Hockley in Titanic, but his career beyond that major hit has been unremarkable, with the exception of his memorable performance as Ansem in the original Kingdom Hearts, and even then he was soon replaced in future installments by Richard Epcar. Kristy Swanson was mostly relegated to bit parts and guest roles after this dud, aside from the also maligned 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag the following year (see above). Treat Williams had been trying to regain esteem after the failure of Dead Heat (again, see above), but the failures of this film and Mulholland Falls in the same year put an end to that. Fortunately, he managed to land a comfortable run on TV with Everwood. The only one to escape unscathed to greener pastures was Catherine Zeta-Jones.
• Priest (2011) tanked so badly critically and financially it brought Paul Bettany down briefly after his career sagged the prior year when Legion and The Tourist became critically ravaged too (although still profitable). He continued collecting paychecks with his voice role as J.A.R.V.I.S. in the Iron Man films, but his live-action career was dead as per a producer's words before being cast as The Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron. That film's success revitalized his career and got him far more recognition in the Marvel Cinematic Universe than his role as J.A.R.V.I.S. ever did. Cam Gigandet, however, snagged some supporting roles in films such as The Unborn, Easy A, and The Roommate after Twilight became a hit. He's rarely starred in a mainstream film following this one bombing and stuck to independent film afterwards.

Q-T

• Robot Jox killed Gary Graham's career outside Alien Nation. Paul Koslo's career never picked up from this flop either before his retirement in 2004 and his death in 2019. Anne-Marie Johnson's career also died before it could start with this film, leading her to stick towards TV with In the Heat of the Night and In Living Color!
• The film careers of Elizabeth Hurley and Matthew Perry were both affected by the 2002 flop Serving Sara.
  • After co-starring with Mike Myers in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Hurley started snagging parts in several comedies such as My Favorite Martian, EdTV, and the remake of Bedazzled. However, none of them came close to matching the success of Austin Powers. In fact, all of those films, aside from Bedazzled, flopped at the box office. After Bedazzled, she starred in a few films with Denis Leary that were intended for a theatrical release but instead got sent Direct to Video. Serving Sara, though, served as the final straw, as Hurley wouldn't headline another mainstream film since and focused more on her modeling work and less on her acting career. She did resume acting years later, but mostly on television.
  • Perry's career pretty much flatlined after Serving Sara and The Whole Ten Yards were both critically trashed and did poorly at the box office. At the same time, Friends had ended. He had one more theatrically released film, as the main character grown up in 2009's 17 Again (2009). He also had a handful of TV roles, including one based on The Odd Couple, before his sudden passing in 2023.
• Most people who worked on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie suffered this after it flopped. Frankie Howerd and Paul Nicholas were affected the worst; Howerd never starred in another film again and his TV career hit the skids before his death in 1992, while Nicholas retreated to soap operas, like EastEnders, after this film and the 1980 version of The Jazz Singer tanked. Peter Frampton also saw his career take a big dip and was rumored to be horrified that it was being released on DVD.
• The failure of the 2006 remake of The Shaggy Dog helped kill the careers of Tim Allen and Kristin Davis alongside other flops (Christmas with the Kranks and Zoom for Allen, Deck the Halls for Davis, all of which are mentioned elsewhere on this page in more specific detail).
• Shanghai Surprise killed Madonna's '80s film career in 1986 following an impressive debut performance in Desperately Seeking Susan the previous year. Although her music career would stay strong, her film career remained dead for four years with failures like Who's That Girl. Dick Tracy and A League of Their Own helped her regain some esteem in the early '90s, which was soon erased by the bad reception of the aforementioned Body of Evidence. It also derailed the career of her then-husband Sean Penn, who would steadily recover his stature over many years. His comeback truly took hold with his Oscar-nominated role in Dead Man Walking.
• Showgirls brought down the film career of Elizabeth Berkley before it could even begin. To note: just after the film debuted to savage critical reviews and middling box office performance, Berkley tried contacting a variety of studios that were aggressively courting her for taking such a risky role since she had the Contractual Purity stigma she got from Saved by the Bell, only to learn that none of them would return her calls, while her agent unceremoniously dropped her as a client. Berkley's had decent success with supporting roles in blockbusters like The First Wives Club and Any Given Sunday since, but her days of ultra-popularity have come and gone. She did regain some footing when she appeared on Dancing with the Stars, and later on reprised her role as Jessie Spano in the Saved by the Bell (2020) revival. Kyle MacLachlan also saw his chance at a successful film career put on hold, after he received significant hype by starring in many works directed by David Lynch (Dune, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks). Though his film career has stagnated, television has kept providing steady, acclaimed work via hits like Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Fallout.
• Son of the Mask knocked out the careers of several of the people involved with it.
  • In the late '80s and early '90s, Steven Wright was a massive comedy star thanks to the short film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings earning him an Academy Award, and roles such as Reservoir Dogs and So I Married an Axe Murderer helped his career grow to ultimate stardom. He hit minor snags with weaker hits such as Mixed Nuts and Canadian Bacon until he starred in this Mask sequel. It was torn apart by critics and audiences alike and flopped at theaters, resulted in the complete meltdown of Wright's career; his next film was a voiceover in 2017's The Emoji Movie (which was also panned), and his only live-action appearance since then was a cameo in the FX comedy Louie.
  • It also hurt the career of lead actor Jamie Kennedy, who has been stuck doing Direct-to-DVD and TV movies (with the exception of Good Deeds, which came out seven years later). Kickin' It Old School, which made back a fifth of its budget and holds a 2% at Rotten Tomatoes, was a more-than-adequate double-tap.
  • All that Traylor Howard has done since? Her much more acclaimed performance as Natalie Teeger in Monk and feature in a climate change video.
• The Star Wars prequel trilogy:
  • While not a box office failure, there's an apocryphal account that the mockery Jake Lloyd received for his performance as the young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace caused him to retire from acting at the age of ten. However, an interview between him and a Star Wars fan site revealed that he, contrary to popular belief, doesn't regret being in Star Wars after all he'd been through.
  • In turn, Hayden Christensen, who played a grown-up Anakin in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, got a career push from the films but never achieved a higher level of success. Christensen acknowledged the derailment in a 2015 interview but also admitted he was never comfortable with the spotlight and was happier in low-profile roles and projects. That being said, Christensen doesn't regret being in Star Wars either and later on returned as Anakin in the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi. He then reprised the role in Ahsoka. Both projects were widely praised, with Christensen's performance considered vastly improved from the prequels thanks to better direction and writing.
  • Natalie Portman was similarly stung by her role as Padme Amidala in the prequels and saw her offers for roles dry up in the aftermath. Her agent wound up calling in some favors in order to get her a shot at the starring role of Black Swan, which wound up being a Career Resurrection for her.
  • Ahmed Best received a lot of criticism and hate for playing Jar-Jar Binks, widely deemed The Scrappy of the Star Wars universe. Being inexorably linked to the character caused his career to dry up and a Creator Breakdown, leading him to contemplate suicide. Luckily, he since has picked himself up and even played up to the character's bad reputation for comedy. He later returned to the Star Wars universe as a different character, Jedi Master Kelleran Beq. Initially appearing in the Star Wars-themed game show Jedi Temple Challenge, positive reactions led to him reprising the role properly in canon on The Mandalorian.
• Superman IV: The Quest for Peace had a few casualties:
  • Saying Mark Pillow (Nuclear Man) didn't get much work after this movie would be an understatement. This interview from 2013 shows that Mark is a pretty good sport about the whole affair, saying that he enjoyed his experience working with Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman but acknowledges the film was a trainwreck that pretty much torpedoed his chances of a serious acting career (and no, he also isn't sure why they decided to dub over him with Hackman's voice). He eventually settled down and became a family man.
  • This film's box office failure and several others stalled the career momentum of Jon Cryer (Lenny Luthor) after Pretty in Pink, which he wouldn't recover from until Two and a Half Men debuted. In an interesting twist of fate, he'd later play Lex Luthor in Supergirl.
• The 2002 remake of Swept Away failed so badly, it killed Madonna's film career for good after her post-Evita success eroded thanks to The Next Best Thing failing almost as badly two years before.^note It also served as a Creator Killer for the director, her then-husband Guy Ritchie (though his career later rebounded). It also killed the international career of its leading man Adriano Giannini (son of the original film's lead Giancarlo) before it could even get started. His screen career since Swept Away has been limited exclusively to Italian television and film, along with voice dubbing work.
• The failure of Three to Tango severely damaged its three leads' careers in 1999.
  • Neve Campbell had built up plenty of hype from Party of Five and the Scream movies, only to lose most of it when this romantic comedy bombed. Afterwards, she spent the next decade and a half doing Scream sequels, TV appearances, and assorted indie and Direct to Video films. Only in 2016, after taking some time off to raise her son, did she return to a starring role, playing LeAnn Harvey on season four of House of Cards.
  • Dylan McDermott saw his film career sink as well when this film was released DOA. His television career, however, remained steady as a cast member on the ABC legal drama The Practice. After that show ended in 2004, he worked on various series that didn't last long before starring in American Horror Story: Murder House. He frequently collaborated with series creator Ryan Murphy after that show became a hit, returning for other installments in the American Horror Story franchise along with his other shows The Politician and Hollywood.
  • Matthew Perry's film career was also battered by this flop, but he did luckily have a hit soon afterwards with The Whole Nine Yards. However, it well and truly died after Serving Sara (see above) fared even worse with audiences as well as critics. Fortunately, he still had Friends.
• Thunderbirds bombed so badly in 2004 that it damaged some of its younger stars' careers in the process. Sophia Myles unfortunately suffered another big dud two years later with Tristan and Isolde, while moving to television proved futile when Moonlight received a mixed reception. Since then, none of her movies or shows have been a hit besides the financially successful though critically panned Transformers: Age of Extinction. This was also the sole blockbuster Brady Corbet headlined. He later made a niche for himself as a character actor in independent film with Mysterious Skin, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Melancholia, among others, while also branching out into directing with Vox Lux.
• The critical and financial underperformance of Torque severely damaged the careers of Martin Henderson and Monet Mazur.
  • Henderson was an up-and-coming actor who relocated from his native New Zealand (where he first got moderate recognition on the soap opera Shortland Street) to become a Hollywood star, which seemed to start well when he starred alongside Naomi Watts in The Ring. After he portrayed the lead role in Torque, he saw his career reduced to bit parts, Direct to Video films, and TV shows which lasted only one season. Only in 2014, ten years later, did Henderson start making a slight comeback, thanks to his starring role on the critically-acclaimed Australian miniseries Secrets & Lies (which later got an American remake on ABC starring Ryan Phillippe). Henderson later obtained a multi-season gig on Grey's Anatomy between 2015 to 2017 as Dr. Nathan Riggs, before being cast as the male lead on the Netflix romantic drama Virgin River. On film, he would appear in a supporting role in the 2022 slasher X.
  • Mazur, a former model, tried her hand at acting in the late '90s to early 2000s, with overall mixed results. After Torque bombed, she starred in a couple of films that were even less successful like Monster-in-Law and The House Bunny. She hasn't starred in a theatrically released film since 2009, with her acting career sustained mostly by television shows like All American.
• Tough Guys Don't Dance damaged the careers of Ryan O'Neal, Isabella Rossellini, and Debra Sandlund, whom all earned Razzie nominations for their performances.
  • O'Neal, an A-list star in The '70s thanks to Love Story, What's Up, Doc?, Paper Moon, and Barry Lyndon, never fully recovered from the backlash his infamous performance in this film ("OH GOD, OH MAN!") got. However, he managed to land a recurring role in the '00s as Temperance Brennan's father on Bones.
  • Rossellini, daughter of director Roberto Rossellini and actress Ingrid Bergman, made a big splash in 1986 with Blue Velvet, but her hype was dented the next year after this film, along with Siesta, were ill-received. Her career was in flux for the next few years, before she recovered slightly following her supporting role in the financially successful Death Becomes Her.
  • Sandlund previously starred in bit parts on television, with this film intended to be her Star-Making Role. After its failure, she has continued working on television in a similar capacity. Currently, she's semi-retired and runs an acting studio with her daughter in Georgia.
• Warren Beatty, still riding high off of Bulworth, starred in the massive flop Town and Country (total budget: $90 million; total worldwide gross: just over $10 million). It was his last acting role for 15 years until Rules Don't Apply in 2016, then that movie also bombed at the box office, failing to crack the Top 10 in its opening week. Beatty could have moved back into the spotlight after Quentin Tarantino offered him the title role in Kill Bill but he turned it down. So it looks like Beatty's lack of output in the last decade is by choice.
  • Town and Country also derailed Goldie Hawn's career as much as it did Beatty's. She only had one major film role after that (The Banger Sisters, which she had completed prior to Town and Country bombing). She then retired from acting for 15 years, and when she returned to the big screen alongside Amy Schumer in Snatched (2017), that film flopped.

U-Z

• Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets suffered from middling reviews and even worse box office returns in 2017, derailing its two leads' careers. Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne were both reeling from the lackluster reception their previous high-profile blockbusters, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for DeHaan and Suicide Squad (2016) for Delevingne, received before they headlined this film in a badly botched comeback attempt. When it bombed, their hype sunk with DeHaan retreating to television afterwards while Delevingne refocused on her modeling career. However, she recently garnered acclaim for her appearance in the second season of Only Murders in the Building.
• Weekend at Bernie's II, unlike the So Bad, It's Good first film which performed and was received well enough, did so terribly in 1993 it killed the careers of Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman, and Terry Kiser.
  • McCarthy, a prominent member of the Brat Pack, previously starred in several of their most popular films (Class (1983), St. Elmo's Fire, Pretty in Pink, etc.). Aside from a supporting role in The Joy Luck Club released the same year, he never starred in a major project again and mostly works as a TV director.
  • Silverman didn't exactly star in a success after the first one besides Death Becomes Her, but his career promptly went down after the sequel became a critically panned Box Office Bomb. He hasn't done much in Hollywood since then except for minor television work.
  • Kiser's most prolific role before Weekend at Bernie's was in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, which speaks a lot to how successful his career was until that point. He didn't do much after the sequel and later moved to Texas to open an acting school.
• Ray Romano and Gene Hackman never really recovered their careers following Welcome to Mooseport. After its release, Romano never headlined another live-action movie again: he mainly did Ice Age sequels, TV appearances, indies, and one Direct to Video movie. When he received no further offers for the next three years following the film, Hackman retired from acting and now makes his money writing historical fiction.
• Windows killed three careers in 1980: Joseph Cortese, Talia Shire, and Elizabeth Ashley (with the latter two receiving nominations at the first Golden Raspberry Awards). The film, which is about a lesbian who hires a man to rape the woman she's attracted to in hopes it will put her off men, was widely condemned even back then for its Unfortunate Implications, with its critical and audience reception accordingly suffering from the backlash of the LGBT community. Shire, who was one of the biggest rising actresses at the time with roles as Connie in The Godfather and Adrian in Rocky, saw her career survive mostly on those films' sequels, with no big roles in anything since her last appearances as those characters in 1990. Ashley saw her career basically drop dead for nearly forty years, until landing a part on the Netflix series Russian Doll in 2019. As for Cortese, his career, besides bit parts in American History X and Green Book, was restricted primarily to guest spots on television after this flop.
• Year One killed two careers: Jack Black and Michael Cera.
  • Before this, Black was a top comedy actor and Cera was an up-and-comer with a few hits (Juno, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) to his name. Then critics destroyed the movie, audiences stayed away, and many people complained that Black and Cera were playing the same characters in every movie. Since then, Black had another enormous flop with the 2010 version of Gulliver's Travels (although it did much better outside North America). Black turned away from populist comedies afterwards and largely kept to low-key comedy-drama roles like Bernie (which netted him a Golden Globe nomination) and his band Tenacious D; after the failure of The Big Year. He later made a small comeback with Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (which was a box office smash), The House With a Clock in Its Walls, and Goosebumps (2015) ^note Which both got decent reviews and recouped their budgets.
  • Cera, meanwhile, starred in Youth in Revolt and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World which both – especially Scott Pilgrim – gained great reviews from critics but flopped at the box office (though both later found their audiences on home video), and he has fallen out of favor with moviegoers, replaced by actors like Jesse Eisenberg. While Youth In Revolt has been completely forgotten, Scott Pilgrim has become a Cult Classic, and this, along with the fourth season of Arrested Development, has proven a bit of a comeback for him. His supporting role as Allan in Barbie (2023) has also garnered him additional, newfound recognition.
• You, Me and Dupree, despite being a mild success at the summer 2006 box office, received terrible reviews, causing varying levels of damage to its three leads' careers.
  • Matt Dillon was a star in The '80s, but laid low in The '90s and mainly did supporting parts. He got a shot at a comeback with Crash, which got him nominated for an Oscar. His career, however, promptly fell upon starring in You, Me, and Dupree. Afterwards, he's gone back to doing supporting roles on television and/or indie/arthouse films like The House That Jack Built.
  • Kate Hudson got her Star-Making Role in the praised Cameron Crowe comedy-drama Almost Famous, whose advertising team placed her at the forefront of its advertising (her face was literally all over the film's main poster) and got her nominated for an Oscar too. Hudson was consequently hyped as the first "It girl" of the new millennium, which was further strengthened by her being Goldie Hawn's daughter and Kurt Russell's stepdaughter. She, however, subsequently headlined a string of romantic comedies which were negatively received by reviewers (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), moviegoers (Le Divorce), or both (Alex & Emma, Raising Helen). Ever since You, Me, and Dupree, her films, though occasionally profitable (Fool's Gold and Bride Wars were both hits with audiences), have been generally disregarded as rom-com fluff brimming with style but without substance. Many began wondering what happened with all that Oscar-worthy talent she first displayed in Almost Famous, which wasn't helped by her "winning" a Worst Actress Golden Raspberry Award for her role in Music (2021) ^note though that role funnily got her a Golden Globe nomination which she lost to Rosamund Pike for I Care a Lot. Hudson's mainly known these days for gracing magazine covers and/with bikini shots, alongside her Fabletics fitness brand.
  • Owen Wilson luckily didn't see his career falter from this film's negative reviews, having just come off the successes of Wedding Crashers and Cars. But in an almost fatal twist of misfortune, Wilson was troubled by a morass of personal issues that culminated with his suicide attempt in August 2007 and subsequently being treated for depression. Wilson eventually returned to work and then maintained a successful streak: with movies as diverse as Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, and Inherent Vice, along with continued work in the Cars franchise and as a part of Wes Anderson's Production Posse. While his career was mildly dented after Zoolander 2 tanked (see below), Wilson recovered quickly when the 2017 film adaptation of the book Wonder became a hit. He then entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, by working alongside his Midnight in Paris co-star Tom Hiddleston in the 2021 Disney+ series Loki.
• Zoolander 2 did varying levels of damage to its actors' star power in 2016, including Will Ferrell and Owen Wilson (both of whom are mentioned above).
  • Its failure harmed the career of Ben Stiller, though moreso as a movie star than his overall career in Hollywood. Although Stiller had success in the late '90s and early '00s, most of his movies in the early '10s, like The Watch (2012) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, either flopped or underperformed. Looking at the box office receipts for most of his work till then, it isn't hard to infer Zoolander 2 was probably his attempt to Win Back the Crowd. Once it bombed critically and financially, he has hardly acted on film besides independent ones such as Brad's Status and The Meyerowitz Stories. On television, he guest starred on Saturday Night Live and later reprised his role as Tony Wonder on Arrested Development. However, he has had success as a director and a producer with the critically acclaimed Escape at Dannemora and Severance (2022).
  • At the start of the decade, Kristen Wiig was basking in the exposure after her tenure on Saturday Night Live along with her well-received work writing and starring in Bridesmaids. However, she began appearing in a number of increasingly underperforming movies (including Walter Mitty opposite Stiller) that steadily whittled down the hype she had. When this film flopped along with Ghostbusters (2016) and Masterminds (2016), Wiig was deemed box office poison. She would win a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress for her performance in Zoolander 2. Most of her films afterwards (mother!, Downsizing, etc.) also failed to turn a profit, while her next huge role as the Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984 was one of that film's most divisive elements and garnered her yet another Razzie nomination.
  • Penélope Cruz was in the midst of a slump after winning an Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which reached its nadir when this film tanked badly. Luckily, she soon recovered with roles on television (as Donatella Versace in The Assassination of Gianni Versace) and on film (reuniting with director Pedro Almodóvar in Pain and Glory and Parallel Mothers).
• Zoom did a number on both Tim Allen and Courteney Cox. Before it, Allen was coming off the bombing of Christmas with the Kranks and The Shaggy Dog (see above) while Cox struggled to find her footing in film after Friends ended. Then this film tanked in 2006, while Cox and Allen had two other duds that same year with Barnyard and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, respectively. Allen later starred in Wild Hogs, which was also poorly received. Cox, on the other hand, had a supporting role in Bedtime Stories (2008), while Mother's Day passed by without any fanfare. Allen and Cox's biggest successes since then have been in franchises they were already mainstays in, with Allen voicing Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story series while Cox reprised her role as Gale Weathers in the Scream sequels.

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