10 Dying Acting Careers Saved By One Amazing Movie

9. Ben Affleck - The Town

It can't be overstated just how hated Ben Affleck was in the mid-2000s. Though his career started well, co-writing and acting in Good Will Hunting, a series of bombs including Pearl Harbour, Daredevil and Gigli made him a laughing stock.

Audiences were annoyed that he was being pushed so hard despite never giving performances that were all that good, while constant hounding in the press exacerbated his position as a Hollywood punching bag. For a while, it looked as though his time headlining movies was over.

What nobody expected, though, was that Affleck would return and legitimise himself by moving behind the camera. His directorial debut Gone Baby Gone caught the attention of critics but it was his second feature, The Town, that really made the second stage of his career possible.

The tight, tense crime thriller not only proved to be a box-office success, but this time around Affleck starred in his own movie, and used the opportunity to prove he still had what it took to be a leading man in a dramatic role.

Follow-up Argo might have been the movie that really went huge, with its Oscar success confirming that Affleck's image had been rehabilitated, but that flick wouldn't have been made without the commercial and critical success of The Town.