10 Biggest Movie Controversies Of 2018

2. The Disabled Representation Debate - Skyscraper

Dwayne Johnson eventually starring in a Die Hard knock-off was pretty much inevitable, but few could've expected that his protagonist, Will Sawyer, would be an amputee.

Sawyer loses one of his legs during a botched hostage rescue in the movie's opening scene, and the rest of the film honestly doesn't make much of a big deal about his disability. He's still enormously physically capable, and his prosthetic leg even proves amusingly handy during a couple of action beats.

But opinion was firmly divided on the movie's representation of the disabled. Some saw the statuesque Johnson as a fantastic poster boy for amputees as action heroes, while others condemned the film for not casting an actual amputee actor in the part.

Ultimately it comes down to the basic economics of Hollywood, and no studio would dare throw $125 million at a blockbuster movie fronted by an unknown actor without a tried-and-tested director like James Cameron at the helm.

You can argue that this is another issue altogether, but on the balance of perspectives, it was interesting that Skyscraper even bothered with a disabled protagonist at all, and that it treated this facet of the character fairly respectfully. That won't be enough for some, and that's totally understandable too.