When Bad Movies Happen To Good People: 11 Flops We've Kindly Forgotten

Almost no actor makes it through their career without a huge flop on the resume-- it comes with the territory of being a working actor, especially when you're just starting out and frankly need the cash. But there's a difference between the flops an actor makes early in their career, or even the flops that happen once they're well-established, and the flops that seem to happen just as their careers are picking up steam. Just when audiences are starting to get to know and like an actor, or when Oscar buzz or "A-list star" titles start floating around, out comes some awful disaster that's so bad, everyone chooses to simply forget about it and move on.

Premium Rush, the Joseph Gordon-Levitt starred being released in these dog days of August, might not actually be that kind of flop-- the critics seem to like it, at least. But he's a prime example of a guy who's on a huge hot streak, then suddenly appears with a movie that nobody's going to love the way they did The Dark Knight Rises, or probably his upcoming Looper. So in honor of this cruel trick of the release schedule, we looked back at some other recent actors who were on an unbeatable hot streak-- until a certain movie came along to wreck it. And because we like these actors so much and are a forgiving populace, we'd forgotten all about these disasters… until now.

Join us as we exhume the corpses of some old flops-- and some truly awful poster art-- and let us know the others we might have forgotten in the comments.


Michael Fassbender in Jonah Hex
After Hunger announced the arrival of a bonafide star in Michael Fassbender, it took a minute to realize he was the same man who stole the show in Zack Snyder’s 300. Fish Tank proved he was the real deal, and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds stormed cinemas not long after. And then it was released. The good news is Hex was so bad, with an ensemble so large, that everybody just moved on, especially once Josh Brolin himself admitted the film was a huge waste of time and talent. Fassbender didn’t lose a single step and, to be honest, was even enjoyable in the terrible comic book adaptation.