9 Major Actors Who Just Made 5 Bad Films In A Row
With this many flops to their credit, it's a wonder they still have a career...
"I don't have a great eye for material," actor Gene Hackman said, looking over his decades-long film career. The actor had made his mark in the wild days of 70s Hollywood, but for every French Connection or Royal Tennenbaum on his CV, there were four or five Behind Enemy Lines or Welcome to Moooseports - the film Hackman claims drove him to retirement. Now he writes cowboy novels on a ranch.
For an actor to amass 100 credited appearances over several decades such as Hackman, there are bound to lie a few bombs on in your filmography. But some actors never recover from particularly difficult slumps. Such periods are often accompanied by personal setbacks or addiction issues - Robert Downey Jr.'s 90s didn't happen all by themselves - and however we may root for the lead, they stand the real possibility that they could fail, their only future being guest bits on Law and Order episodes and the odd failed pilot.
Here are a few facing such a danger that, barring a comeback, may become a reality.
9. Nicolas Cage
The dry spell: Grand Isle, Primal, Kill Chain, Running With The Devil, Colour Out of Space
It's almost too easy to take quick shots at Cage's eccentric, extreme style of acting -a style fellow actor Sean Penn claimed was the first of its kind to bring something new to the art form in decades. But it gets especially funny imagining Cage living his life much like one of his larger than life characters - which he apparently did. Cage ran himself deep in debt with extravagant impulse buys, including more than one castle, a shark and a black mark T-Rex skull.
This has led to Cage appearing in less-than-dignified Direct to HD features - many of which were made to exploit the tax breaks of various countries. Any youtube compilation of Cage overacting will likely feature one or more clip from such films like The Trust, Primal, Grand Isle, Inconceivable or Running With the Devil.
Cage appears to be out of the red now, however he's come out giving zero s***s about audience expectation. Rather, he actively chose to adapt H.P. Lovecraft's unfilmable The Colour Out of Space in which he's an Alpaca farmer and lead Wally's Wonderland, an upcoming film about murderous animatronic Disney-like characters.
At least Wally's has a built-in audience of Cage aficionados and horror fans alike. The same can't be said for whatever he's usually doing to pay the bills. For each of these recent films, you may get the odd Cage freak-out, but for the most part he's playing it straight, trying to finish the scene before the ATMs close.