10 Actors Who Could Ruin Upcoming Movies
Tron: Ares looks cool, but will audiences ignore the big Jared Leto-shaped elephant in the room?
No matter how brilliantly crafted and exquisitely well-written a movie might be, even the most potential-rich work of cinema can end up being derailed by an unfortunate casting choice.
After all, actors are the vessels through which a story is ultimately told, and if they're not fit for the task or become more of a liability than a benefit, then their movie is in trouble.
And that just might be the case with these 10 upcoming films, each of which has made one casting choice that's massively eyebrow-raising to say the least.
Now, this isn't to say that these films will definitely falter because of these actors, but there's certainly justifiable cause for concern that their presence could be hugely detrimental to the end product.
Perhaps the actor in question brings a ton of distracting baggage to the table, or maybe they just seem horrendously miscast.
Whatever the reason, these performers all risk derailing these movies long before we've actually sat down to watch them for ourselves.
But the proof, as ever, will be in the pudding, and so fingers are crossed that these actors end up pulling it off against the odds...
10. Robert Downey Jr. - Avengers: Doomsday
Let's kick this list off with perhaps the biggest elephant in the room in Hollywood right now - the return of Robert Downey Jr. to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the now-filming Avengers: Doomsday.
Marvel Studios shocked the world last summer when they announced that Downey would be returning to the franchise not to reprise his role as Iron Man but instead to play the villainous Doctor Doom.
Tellingly, Marvel have remained tight-lipped about precisely how this will work, leaving fans to speculate on whether Downey's Doctor Doom might be a Tony Stark variant, or more bewilderingly, Downey could be genuinely playing an entirely new character with no link whatsoever to Tony Stark.
Either way, the bombshell announcement proved immediately polarising, some relishing the opportunity to see Downey back in the MCU, while others saw it as a wildly desperate move on Marvel's part - an "in case of emergency, smash glass" moment to try and restore the MCU's floundering goodwill of recent years.
We can only hope that the Russo brothers are cooking up something interesting and unexpected here, though it's also quite possible that Downey ends up being an albatross hanging around the movie's neck.
There's no doubt he'll give it his all as usual, but on a storytelling level, will his presence be anything more than cynical stunt casting?