8 Actors Whose Careers Flopped After Leaving The MCU

2. Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Avengers Age Of Ultron Quicksilver
Marvel Studios

Aaron Taylor-Johnson's grand entrance into the MCU could not have come at a worse time.

As Quicksilver in 2015's Avengers: Age Of Ultron, the actor wasn't just joining one of the most prolific movie franchises on the planet, he was competing with another version of Quicksilver - a critically-beloved, fan-adored version - that had debuted in X-Men: Days Of Future Past the year before.

And whether Marvel will admit it or not, Days Of Future Past's Quicksilver was a huge thorn in their side. It meant that no matter what they did, Taylor-Johnson's version would always be considered inferior, and you have to wonder if this inevitable comparison contributed towards their decision to kill the character off.

This whole thing could be considered an embarrassment from the actor's point of view, and it's not surprising to see that he's stepped back a bit over the last couple of years.

Since Ultron, Taylor-Johnson has only starred in two movies, even though he was everywhere just a couple of years ago, with Godzilla, Kick-Ass, Avengers, Anna Karenina, and Savages. Age Of Ultron should have propelled him to greater heights, but instead, it appears to have scared him off the blockbuster scene.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!