There are a lot of roles that people don’t recover from that easily once they’re taken, but for some reason taking on a superhero role, or simply a role in a superhero movie, can damage one’s reputation in a big way if the individual doesn’t end up doing something spectacular in the said movie. There are plenty of actors that have starred in horrible superhero movies that didn’t end seeing their reputation marred, but there are also plenty of others that weren’t so lucky since they were either too visible or they contributed to the cringe in a big way. It might not sound fair to label these movies or the individuals that helped to make them in such a manner, but some of the superhero movies that have been made in the last few decades were just all kinds of awful, no matter how impressive they might have appeared in the trailers. It does suck just a bit to think of any superhero movie as being less than great, but there have been a few that really weren’t worth mentioning, let alone remembering. The best superhero movies can make even the worst actors look pretty good since there are usually enough working elements and supporting actors to even things out. But sometimes even that’s not enough.
Here are a few actors whose careers were ruined by a superhero movie.
5. Blade: Trinity – Wesley Snipes
Whether you want to believe Patton Oswalt or not when it comes to discussing just what Wesley Snipes was like on the set of Blade: Trinity, it’s kind of mirrored by his other costars that Snipes was kind of a downer when it came to working with him. Apparently, he didn’t want to come out of his trailer a good deal of the time, he wrote up a sex scene with Jessica Beal that she didn’t agree with, and he wasn’t a big fan of Ryan Reynolds, or of doing certain shots. Again, a lot of this is hearsay, but some of it’s been backed up by the rest of the cast, who tend to think that Snipes was a bit of a male diva on set.
4. Fantastic Four – Jessica Alba
Personally, I didn’t think that either of the two movies starring Jessica Alba was that bad, but when you really look at it, Chris Evans was the only one that really came out of these movies unscathed since he went on to play one of the greatest superheroes in the MCU. In the meantime, Alba didn’t do a whole lot after this movie that’s been noticed over the years. At one point she was being groomed to be one of the biggest names in Hollywood, but after this and a few other attempts, it really feels as though she was allowed to drift to the background for a while. She’s still around and she’s still acting, but it’s far more low-key than years ago.
3. Superman Returns – Brandon Routh
If there was ever a superhero movie that felt like a one-off, this was it. The fact that Superman returned to find Lois married and with a kid was kind of hard to accept, but it was also tough to see Superman being pounded by regular human thugs as well. Of course, he was standing on an island that had been infused with kryptonite, as Lex Luthor had made it happen with some marvel of science that he’d concocted but really wasn’t as sound as some people might want to think. People were just excited to have Superman back on the big screen, that’s about the only reason that this was so anticipated.
2. Steel – Shaquille O’Neal
If playing a genie by the name of Kazam wasn’t enough to kill off any interest that people had when it came to seeing him in movies, this was the next worst thing. Steel was a character that came about when the Death of Superman series hit, as there were several Superman characters that emerged at that time since DC might have been licking their chops to see how much money they could make off this venture. It was either that, or they were soiling themselves as they said a collective ‘uh oh’ when the backlash hit after Superman ‘died’. This movie though was something else entirely and it was just a whole lot of ‘nope’ from a lot of fans.
1. Spider-Man 3 – Topher Grace
Anyone that’s read a Spider-Man comic knew going into this that the emergence of Venom was a big deal since the black-skinned symbiote was one of the wall-crawler’s worst and most dangerous enemies. But seeing Topher Grace become some skinny-limbed enemy that toyed with Spider-Man instead of going for the kill was all kinds of painful since at least when Sony created their version with Tom Hardy he became the humongous, bulky creature that fans were waiting for all these years. As for Topher, well, he didn’t have a lot going on after this, at least not where people could see.
There are just some roles that need a little more care than filmmakers give them sometimes.
Follow Us
