10 Filmmakers Who Blamed Actors For Failed Movies

10. Roland Emmerich Blamed Will Smith For Making Suicide Squad Instead - Independence Day: Resurgence

Expectations weren't exactly high in the lead up to Independence Day: Resurgence's release: it was a belated 20-years-later sequel without the original's charismatic star, Will Smith, so how good could it realistically be?

And so, like clockwork, critics and fans of the original alike roundly panned Resurgence, which beyond a few inspired moments of destruction and some pithy Jeff Goldblum quips, came and went with little fanfare, grossing less than $400 million worldwide. Oof.

While on the press tour for his (even worse) new movie Midway, Emmerich chimed in on what went down, and roundly laid the blame at Will Smith's feet, who suddenly quit the film to make Suicide Squad instead.

Emmerich said, "I just wanted to make a movie exactly like the first, but then in the middle of production Will opted out because he wanted to do Suicide Squad. I should have stopped making the movie because we had a much better script. After I had to, really fast, cobble another script together. And I should have just said 'no,' because all of a sudden I was making something I criticised myself, a sequel."

While it's easy to appreciate Emmerich's frustration that his original script featuring Smith's Captain Hiller had to be thrown out, it's not terribly easy to believe that this script would've been much better than what we got.

Granted, Smith's presence would've immediately elevated things, but with a script actually worth a damn, the film should've been able to survive without him just fine.