10 Movie Stars Who Ruined Their Own Movies

Terminator fans were ecstatic when Christian Bale was hired to play John Connor in the series' fourth movie, Terminator Salvation, because it indicated a major seal of approval from one of the biggest stars on the planet.

Yet, Salvation was ultimately received with indifference by critics and fans alike, failing to turn a profit and putting the movie franchise on ice for six years until the release of Terminator Genisys.

The biggest problem, believe it or not, was Bale himself, who fundamentally changed the creative direction of the project when the filmmakers were "lucky" enough to have him come aboard.

Bale was originally offered the role of human-machine protagonist Marcus Wright, yet decided that he wanted to play franchise hero John Connor instead, who initially had a much smaller role in the script.

And so, the screenplay was rewritten to beef up Connor's role, with Jonathan Nolan - who contributed to the scripts of Bale's Batman movies - fleshing out Connor's heroic arc.

This in turn led to Marcus' role being diluted and played instead by the less-inspired choice of Sam Worthington, ensuring that the promising dramatic thread of a man learning that he's part-machine felt rather undercooked.

Had Bale played Marcus and the film remained centered around his exploration of what it means to be human, Terminator Salvation would've been considerably more interesting, as opposed to Bale playing a rather generically gruff riff on Connor.