10 Most Cringe-Worthy Vanity Projects In Movie History
2. Battlefield Earth
Will Smith wasn't the first person to (allegedly) use Scientology as a model for his disastrous science fiction movie - before After Earth, another Hollywood star, John Travolta, opted to adapt a portion of the cult's founder L. Ron Hubbard's novel Battlefield Earth: A Saga Of The Year 3000 back in 2000. To say that the end result of this somewhat twisted vanity project was an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement - Battlefield Earth is a cacophony of terrible acting, awful sets, incredibly poor direction and utterly laughable dialogue wrapped up in one of the most absurd plots ever to grace the screen.
Throughout it all, Travolta himself hams it up in what has to be one of the most painfully embarrassing performances. And not just of his career, but of all time. Needless to say, the major Hollywood studios didn't want anything to do with it, with one referring to it accurately as "an $80 million vanity project for Travolta." Whether or not the Travolta action figure manufactured - which delivers the line, "Exterminate all man-animals at will!" - will become a collectible item is anyone's guess.