Some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, including Eddie Murphy, Halle Berry, Taylor Lautner, and Mike Myers struggle to get funding for movies right now, and it’s mainly due to one crucial movie that ended their promising careers.
Check out 15 movies that killed some of the biggest actors’ Hollywood careers, and be sure to read through the end of the article for more details on why each movie seemingly killed their promising careers.
Actor: Elizabeth Berkley
Movie: Showgirls
Release date: 1995
Perhaps the most iconic career killer was Elizabeth Berkley’s role in Paul Veerhoeven’s 90s erotic classic Showgirls. While torn to shreds by critics and audiences alike at the time, the movie has now been reclaimed as a celebrated cult classic.
And to many, the movie is even a misunderstood masterpiece that was ahead of its time.
And so, while Berkley herself would claim it’s the role that destroyed her career as showgirl Nomi who tries to make a name for herself in Vegas, even she has come around on it. At a 2015 screening of the movie at Los Angeles’ Cinespia, she made an appearance to raucous applause.
Actor: Taylor Lautner
Movie: Abduction
Release date: 2011
After the Twilight series, Taylor Lautner ostensibly disappeared. Much like the attempt to make Hayden Christensen a leading action star post-franchise with Jumper, this Lautner vehicle Abduction also fell completely flat.
Panned by critics and ignored by audiences, Lautner’s career went in the opposite direction of fellow Twilight alum Robert Pattinson (the new Batman) and Kristen Stewart (a critical darling).
At one point, the Twilight studio Summit Entertainment was thinking of replacing Lautner before the sequel New Moon entered production. It makes you wonder if another actor who took on the role of Jacob would’ve had better luck in their post-vampire career.
Actor: Tom Green
Movie: Freddy Got Fingered
Release date: 2001
Remember Tom Green? The comedian rose to prominence in the late 90s and with faith in the funnyman, Hollywood big wigs took a swing and allowed Green to write, direct and star in his own studio comedy. He even had his own television show on MTV, where he infamously documented his battle with testicular cancer.
A surrealist dark comedy about an aspiring cartoonist, the movie now has been reclaimed by some sectors as under-appreciated, but it’s too little, too late for Green who has long since vanished from the spotlight.
Actor: Tobey Maguire
Movie: Spider-Man 3
Release date: 2007
The third entry in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy received the opposite of the acclaim of the first two entries and instead was panned and marked the final web-sling of Sony’s Spidey for the time being. That is, until an Andrew Garfield reboot much too soon thereafter.
Tobey Maguire’s previously lauded portrayal of Peter Parker pivoted to ridicule, largely due to a scene featuring a bizarrely emo Peter Parker, and Maguire has rarely been seen in movies since.
Actor: Lindsay Lohan
Movie: I Know Who Killed Me
Release date: 2007
Lindsay Lohan’s short-lived film career was a downward trajectory whether or not I Know Who Killed Me existed or not. To many, when this bizarre thriller came out in 2007, it was the death knell of Lohan’s career.
However, years later in 2012 she starred as Elizabeth Taylor in the Lifetime TV movie Liz & Dick, though it was equally panned. While she’s not flitting about in Mykonos at her resort (which was chronicled on a reality TV show), apparently Lohan now appears in a British comedy series Sick Note, which streams on Netflix.
Actor: Eddie Murphy
Movie: Pluto Nash
Release date: 2002
Eddie Murphy is a king of stand-up comedians, and he was churning out solid box office hits throughout the ’80s and ’90s, but somewhere, some place, this comic got lost. We kept hoping he would turn it around, as he’s a legendary talent that his fans would love to get to enjoy on the big screen, but he continues to star in flop after flop. His latest was 2012’s A Thousand Words, which had a plot that actually involved him learning not to talk as much. What could the writers possibly be thinking when they hired one of the best talkers on the planet for this role.
But it’s not all bad news for Mr. Murphy. He stars in an upcoming Netflix biopic, Dolemite Is My Name, and he also has sequels to his classic hits Beverly Hills Cop and Coming to America.
Actor: Geena Davis
Movie: Cutthroat Island
Release date: 1995
We didn’t see this one coming. Geena Davis was one of the hottest stars in the early ’90s, with Thelma and Louise, A League of Their Own, and Beetlejuice becoming instant classics, but once she starred in 1995’s Cutthroat Island, which was directed by her then husband Renny Harlin, it killed her entire career (along with other actors’ as well).
She’s found some small success on TV, but has yet to make a feature film worth mentioning since the disastrous flop.
Actor: Kevin Costner
Movie: Waterworld
Release date: 1995
Kevin Costner is a bonafide superstar, with dozens of films on his IMDB page that are worthy of watching, but Waterworld certainly sunk his stardom ship back in ’95.
Costner was one of the most famous actors on the planet, and now he’s been making what seems to be loads of sports movies which all feel very similar. He still has a lot of talent, so we’re hoping he stays afloat by pure talent alone.
Actor: Mike Myers
Movie: The Love Guru
Release date: 2008
Mike Myers was the voice of Shrek, and the star of the highly popular Austin Powers franchise. He does The Love Guru, and literally disappears. He has since starred in The Gong Show on ABC, completely in character. He also had a supporting role in Bohemian Rhapsody. But there’s been no project as massive as Austin Powers, and Love Guru is to blame.
Rumor is, Myers is incredibly difficult to work with, so maybe his pile of money was more attractive than onset arguments.
Actor: Halle Berry
Movie: Catwoman
Release date: 2004
Sigh. Halle Berry was one of the most talented actresses in the Tinseltown, but she just had to do a superhero/villain movie, and ended up giving one of the worst performances ever seen on the big screen when 2004’s Catwoman premiered.
She’s disappeared since this movie hit theaters over 15 years ago, with X-Men: Days of Future Past and a now-canceled CBS series Extant being her only recent successes… if you can call them that.
Actor: Terrence Howard
Movie: Iron Man
Release date: 2008
Terrence Howard was a man with star-power back in 2008, and he actually commanded more money than Robert Downey Jr. did in the first Iron Man film. That may have been his downfall though, as the actor was recast when he wasn’t willing to take a paycut for the second Iron Man film.
Don Cheadle took his place (a good friend of his) and the rest is history. Cheadle returned for the massive Avengers movies Age of Ultron, Infinity War, and Endgame, while Howard ended up with his TV show Empire, which has been sinking in the ratings over the years.
Actor: Chris O’Donnell
Movie: Batman & Robin
Release date: 1997
Believe it or not, Chris O’Donnell was a pretty respectable and promising actor until he was sadly cast in Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin alongside George Clooney (the one with the infamous Bat-nips).
After the film’s release in 1997, O’Donnell never again starred in a feature film, and focuses on the small screen now, with some small roles previously on Grey’s Anatomy and NCIS: Los Angeles. Why didn’t George Clooney’s career take the same kind of hit?
Actor: Hayden Christensen
Movie: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
Release date: 2005
Oh, Hayden. It was short and sweet, your film career that is. The actor was lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to play the teenage and adult version of Anakin Skywalker in George Lucas’ Star Wars‘ prequels, the bad thing is, the dialogue in these films was so horrid that Daniel Day-Lewis couldn’t have done them justice.
Christensen would go on to do a few more films, so it wasn’t an entire debacle like some others, but the titles Awake and Jumper certainly don’t ring too many bells when thinking about quality cinema.
And now that several more Star Wars movies have come into existence, Hayden has continued to slip into obscurity.
Actor: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Movie: Boat Trip
Release date: 2002
Cuba Gooding Jr. has never truly recovered from this career choice debacle. While Boat Trip may have been ahead of its time by taking on important social issues in the LGBT community, Cuba just never quite made it back from this one failed trip at the box office.
Prior to this his star was rising like a rocket, he was commanding $20 million a picture, but as soon as Boat Trip came into port, he completely flatlined.
He won an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Jerry McGuire in 1996, but when’s the last time you saw the once beloved actor headlining a film in the last decade? It’s a shame too, as he is a true talent.
Actor: Brandon Routh
Movie: Superman Returns
Release date: 2006
Less of a bad casting choice and more of a terrible movie. Brandon Routh was cast in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, which was panned by fans and critics alike. The sad thing is Routh got hit the hardest, with everyone blaming the man of steel himself.
It’s sad really, as he wasn’t that bad of a Superman or Clark Kent. It didn’t kill his film career entirely though, as he had cameos in Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Scott Pilgrim vs the World. So, maybe it did kill his movie career.