As per Henry Ford’s words, failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
The problem is when you don’t continue intelligently and because of that, you fail again.
No matter how hard one falls, he always has the opportunity to rise and to be better.
Again, the problem is when you fall immediately after you’ve risen, without drawing a lesson from it or barking up the wrong tree.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what some otherwise successful action actors do when starring in bad films.
That is why we call them ‘good actors in bad movies’.
When from one reason or another they’ve been cast in a horrible movie, quite often they simply continue to appear in a series of crappy films.
It is just like they have been jinxed.
Which is worse is that sometimes they can’t escape from that, thus slowly but steadily killing their careers.
Often, these actors are looking only for the paycheck, thus totally ignoring the script and the other factors responsible for the success of a certain motion picture.
In some cases, forced by financial troubles and bad spending habits, they just don’t have a choice, I accept that.
But is it an excuse to deliberately bury a successful career and an established name?
Quite often even, many actors start shooting poor, small budget action films where the salary is more appropriate for a janitor and not for an established actor, appeared in numerous blockbusters.
Is this because of the fact that they just stop receiving quality offers from the studios?
Follow me in the paragraphs below where I will discuss some of the…
Good Actors in Bad Movies
Nicolas Cage
Everybody knows that Nicolas Cage was a Hollywood hotshot and a darn good investment for the studios.
It is unfortunate that now only a few remember that.
Moreover, many fans and people all around the world keep asking themselves what the heck happened to Nic Cage’s career.
If you don’t believe me, just check out this thread on Quora where there is a vivid discussion about that.
Although having a famous uncle – the legendary Francis Ford Coppola, Nicolas Kim Coppola changed his name to Nicolas Cage in order to be able to self-establish his name in the cinema industry.
And boy, he did it with box-office action hits such as John Woo’s ‘Face Off’ (1997), Michael Bay’s ‘The Rock’ (1996), the explosive ‘Con Air’ (1997) and the fast-paced ‘Gone in Sixty Seconds’ (2000).
Not to mention the thrilling ‘Lord of War’ (2005) where Nicolas played an arms dealer and the adventure hit ‘National Treasure’ (2004) in which he stepped in Indiana Jones’ shoes.
Actually, ‘Lord of War’ (2005) is quite possibly his last good action movie.
After that, an avalanche of bad films followed that continues up to this day.
One of the first wrong turns that Cage made was the crappy horror ‘Wicker Man’ (2006) which was heavily panned by the critics and was a box-office disaster.
Then he headed to another catastrophe by starring in the action-fantasy misunderstanding ‘Ghost Rider’ (2007) along with Eva Mendes.
During the next years, Nicolas eagerly continued to drown in mediocrity by appearing in critically and commercially unsuccessful films such as ‘Next’ (2007), ‘Bangkok Dangerous’ (2008), ‘Drive Angry’ (2011), etc.
In the past few years, Nicolas Cage not only hasn’t appeared in a decent movie but he started to shoot low-budget funny action movies.
Some of them include the disastrous ‘Tokarev’ (2014), the full of plot holes ‘Dying of the Light’ (2014), the pathetic ‘Dog Eat Dog’ (2016), the boring ‘USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage’ (2016), etc.
Sometimes, though, he reminded of himself in some decent attempts for a good movie like for example in the drama ‘Joe’ (2013) and in ‘Bad Lieutenant’ (2009).
The actor himself has stated in a recent interview that he is not looking at the paychecks when it comes to his role choices.
He just wants to do the movies that he likes and feels good about.
Rumor has it that he does tones of preposterous movies only for the paycheck because of his IRS debt issues.
No matter what the truth is, let’s hope that the good actor that Nicolas Cage is will get back in the line.
Bruce Willis
It’s not a secret that back in the 90’s Bruce Willis was one of the most successful action stars along with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Bruce’s leading roles in hit productions such as the four parts of ‘Die Hard’, ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994), ‘Twelve Monkeys’ (1995) and ‘The Fifth Element’ (1997), were all huge success and helped him establish as one of the most celebrated action figures in Hollywood.
Plus, we all remember his strong performances in the actioners ‘Hostage’ (2005), ‘16 Blocks’ (2006) and in the dazzling thrillers ‘Sixth Sense’ (1999) and ‘Unbreakable’ (2000).
So why is he on that black list?
The things started to deteriorate for Bruce Willis in the near past.
It’s not that before he hasn’t appeared in bad flicks (just look at ‘Color of Night’ (1994)) but during the last couple of years, his films truly sucked.
Let’s start by mentioning the box-office flop ‘Setup’ (2011) in which he starred along the wannabe actor 50 Cent.
Then we can continue by pointing out his role in the funny action movie ‘Cop Out’ (2010) as well as his participation in the bad to the bone ‘Catch.44’ (2011).
Oh, and we’re just starting out.
Have you ever watched ‘The Cold Light of the Day’ (2012) in which Willis teams up with Henry Cavill?
If you haven’t, please don’t and if you have, then I pity you.
What about the action-thriller from 2012 ‘Fire with Fire’ starring also Josh Duhamel?
It’s so bad that it hurts and that is not only my opinion.
It’s the world’s opinion and the results are visible in the box-office.
Some of the other train crash movies of Bruce Willis include ‘The Prince’ (2014) with John Cusack, ‘Vice’ (2015) with Thomas Jane, the unbelievably horrible ‘Extraction’ (2015) and the ludicrous ‘Precious Cargo’ (2016).
There is some good news, folks!
In the dark tunnel in which his career has entered, there are some lights.
The charming actor shoots good movies from time to time and the proof of that are titles such as the jaw-dropping sci-fi thriller ‘Looper’ (2012) and the funny action comedy ‘RED’ (2010) and its sequel from 2013.
Recently it has been reported that Willis will star in the leading role in the upcoming sequel to the hit thriller ‘Unbreakable’, so let’s hope that this is going to be his big return in the game.
Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipe’s career was very unstable at the beginning when the skilled in martial arts actor became very popular in the early 90’s.
He was first noticed after starring in such awesome hits as the mafia-type crime drama ‘New Jack City’ (1991) and the sports drama ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ (1992).
After that, he made some disappointing actioners such as ‘Passenger 57’ (1992), ‘Boiling Point’ (1993) and ‘Rising Sun’ (1993) where he starred along Sean Connery.
Then he continued to be in the spotlight with the sci-fi blockbuster ‘Demolition Man’ (1993) starring Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock.
When we just started to like him he again disappointed us by appearing in ‘Drop Zone’ (1994) which was a box-office drop and in ‘Money Train’ (1995) where he partnered once again with Woody Harrelson, this time unsuccessfully.
The one movie that popularized his name in the action world, as you probably know was the original and ultra-successful ‘Blade’ from 1998.
The fantasy vampire tale skyrocketed Snipe’s career and established him as one of the most promising African-American actors by that time.
Two sequels followed which were not as successful but still pleased the fans.
In the next years, Wesley went through some harsh times and financial troubles.
He even served a three-year prison sentence for tax evasion and was released in 2013.
It’s not sure how much this has influenced his role choices but Snipe’s career started a steady downward trend.
He began to shoot direct-to-video flicks that no one cared about.
Some examples are ‘The Detonator’ (2006), ‘7 Seconds’ (2005) and the catastrophic fantasy horror ‘Gallowwalkers’ (2012).
Fresh out of jail, Sylvester Stallone cast him in the third installment of the star-packed action franchise ‘The Expendables’ in 2014.
Snipes had a small but remarkable role and the fans saw him like they wanted to see him from a long time – kicking ass in a decent action movie.
Alas, this didn’t help him to revive his faded career.
His last movie ‘The Recall’ (2017) which is a spineless action-horror flick was far from his best works.
I am pretty sure that the otherwise talented Wesley Snipes will have his long-awaited project which will remind to the world who Wesley Snipes really is.
John Travolta
Travolta is an iconic actor, no doubt about it.
He’s made cult movies in the past, movies that we all know and love.
That is why I have a question to ask John.
John, what the heck happened?
Seriously, in the past few years Travolta is sinking down with clichéd action movies like ‘ I am Wrath’ (2016), ‘Criminal Activities’ (2015) and ‘Life on the Line’ (2015) that in vain tries to be a heartfelt heroic story.
It’s like someone has compelled John to act in such misery flicks.
Not to mention some other ones, also very poor.
By the way, have you ever heard of them at all?
I am talking about the pathetic heist tale ‘The Forger’ (2014)
and the generic ‘Killing Season’ (2013) with Robert De Niro (De Niro is another fine actor that repeatedly fails).
Probably the last decent (decent not good) action movie with John Travolta that I recall is ‘From Paris with Love’ (2010) with Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
That is close to 10 years without a significant motion picture for the actor who has starred in some truly fantastic action movies, not to mention the credit that he is due for participating in cult motion pictures like ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994) and ‘Grease’ (1978).
I am starting to think that John Travolta is just messing around with his fans and as soon as possible he will begin to appear in the films that he really deserves.
Why do you think good actors start shooting bad movies? Please help me understand and leave a comment below!