3. John Goodman - The Flinstones
In 'I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski', the excellent guide to the Coens' cult classic, the authors interview the cast and ask them to recall their experience of shooting the film. Goodman is known to be a sometimes irascible interviewee, yet he laughs along, quotes his lines and even expresses a desire to reprise his role as Walter Sobchak. There is one performance, however, that he's glad to see the back of:
Goodman: '' t's very rewarding now to have kids come up and quote stuff to me. It's very pleasing. Now, if it was The Flintstones, I would have put a nine-millimeter in my mouth a long time ago. But this one I don't seem to mind''
Ah, yes.
The Flintstones. Brian Levant's 1994 live-action adaptation saw Goodman as Fred Flintstone, a role pitched perhaps somewhat awkwardly alongside Rosie O' Donnell's Betty Rubble. The film made over $300 million from a $46 million budget but failed to impress the critics; while some accused it of tarnishing the good name of Hanna Barbera, others simply threw it to the Razzie lions. Levant was undeterred, however, and a sequel,
The Flinstones in Viva Rock Vegas, emerged in 2000. Suffice it to say, none of the original cast returned - although O'Donnell did lend her voice to, erm, an octopus. Incidentally,
The Flinstones featured an early performance from another of our entrants, Halle Berry, who played Fred's colleague/temptress, Sharon Stone. No prizes for guessing who the studio originally had in mind for this role. Berry and Stone later appeared together in
Catwoman- and we all know how that turned out.