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<\/div>\nGet the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email<\/h3>\nGet the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter <\/h3>\nGet the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter <\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nM<\/span>ost movie stars can survive a flop or two<\/a>. But then there are roles that completely upend an actor\u2019s career, leaving them out of work or forever changed in the eye of the public.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s not really possible to talk about Faye Dunaway\u2019s career<\/a> without mentioning her notorious performance in Mommie Dearest, for instance. Or to google Brandon Routh in any other context than \u201cwhat happened to Superman Returns star Brandon Routh?\u201d <\/p>\nOften this is unfair \u2013 women historically tend to bear the brunt of career-shaking backlash, and there are typically many different reasons why movie stardom hits a wall. But whenever an actor does seem to drop off the radar, it\u2019s usually a specific film that is to blame.<\/p>\n
From Meg Ryan\u2019s unfairly maligned erotic thriller<\/a> to the body-swap comedy that prevented Judge Reinhold from becoming one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest comedy stars, here are 17 films that derailed the fortunes of their stars single-handed.<\/p>\nFaye Dunaway in <\/strong>Mommie Dearest<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nReleased in 1981, the Joan Crawford biopic Mommie Dearest \u2013 starring Faye Dunaway and adapted from a harrowing bestseller by Crawford\u2019s daughter Christina \u2013 painted the star in a less than flattering light. Namely, as an unhinged tyrant prone to chewing up her daughter as well as the scenery of every room she was in. The latter, in fairness, was more Dunaway\u2019s fault \u2013 and it promptly took a pick-axe to her leading-lady roles. She drew the worst reviews of her career, along with a Worst Actress Razzie, and Dunaway was so embarrassed by the film that she rarely spoke about it again. In a series of rare comments made in 2016, Dunaway said the film \u201cturned my career in a direction where people would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me,\u201d adding: \u201cThat\u2019s an awful hard thing to beat. I should have known better, but sometimes you\u2019re vulnerable and you don\u2019t realise what you\u2019re getting into.\u201d <\/p>\n
Elizabeth Berkley in <\/strong>Showgirls<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nExpectations were high for the release of Showgirls in 1995. It marked a reunion between Basic Instinct\u2019s director and screenwriter \u2013 Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas, respectively \u2013 while many assumed the film\u2019s star, the former Saved by the Bell actor Elizabeth Berkley, would be shot into the Hollywood stratosphere much like Sharon Stone after Basic Instinct. Then people actually saw Showgirls. While the film\u2019s reputation has (rightly!) turned around in the decades since<\/a> \u2013 along with appreciation for Berkley\u2019s broad and undeniably mesmerising performance \u2013 the film\u2019s dismal initial response cratered Berkley\u2019s fledgling movie career practically overnight. \u201cThere was so much cruelty around it,\u201d she said in 2020. \u201cI was bullied. And I didn\u2019t understand why I was being blamed. The job as an actor is to fulfil the vision of the director. And I did everything I was supposed to do. No one associated with the film spoke up on my behalf to protect me. I was left out in the cold and I was a pariah in the industry I had worked so hard for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n![\"Elizabeth](\"https:\/\/static.independent.co.uk\/2024\/05\/07\/16\/newFile-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nopen image in gallery<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nElizabeth Berkley in \u2018Showgirls\u2019 (Shutterstock)<\/span><\/div>\nShannen Doherty in <\/strong>Mallrats<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nWhen Shannen Doherty left the Nineties teen soap Beverly Hills 90210 in 1994, she had aspirations to launch a movie career. She had, after all, starred in a number of hit movies before going to TV, including the 1988 teen classic Heathers. But her choice of project \u2013 Kevin Smith\u2019s slacker comedy Mallrats, alongside then-unknowns including Ben Affleck and Jason Lee \u2013 was a box-office flop, and as the biggest name in the cast she took the blame. \u201cIt died and so did my film career,\u201d she said in 2024<\/a>. \u201cPeople literally thought that I was carrying the movie so [because] it was a box-office failure, it was completely on me. There was no film career after that, which was a little brutal.\u201d<\/p>\nDavid Caruso in <\/strong>Jade<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nNow best known for putting his sunglasses on and then taking them off again in the long-running CSI: Miami, David Caruso was at one point positioned to be a bonafide movie star. After a high-profile dispute with the show\u2019s producers over pay, he\u2019d left the cop drama NYPD Blue in a blaze of negative publicity in 1994 with designs on film stardom. But his two 1995 star vehicles, the cop actioner Kiss of Death and the erotic thriller Jade<\/a>, crashed and burned. The latter, for which he was paid a $2m salary, was the kind of expensive disaster that few could climb out from under, let alone an actor who\u2019d already burnt so many bridges in Hollywood. \u201cWhen Jade came out and did $4m at the box office, the town went silent,\u201d Caruso said in 1997. \u201cI could have taken my telephone and my answering machine and thrown them both in the dumpster.\u201d That year, he slunk back to TV.<\/p>\nSofia Coppola in <\/strong>The Godfather: Part III<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nNo one is exactly complaining about The Godfather: Part III killing Sofia Coppola\u2019s acting career, let alone Coppola herself \u2013 she never had a love for acting, and was only pulled into the movie by her father Francis at the last minute because a number of other actors were unavailable. Cast as Michael Corleone\u2019s doomed teenage daughter Mary, Coppola saw her performance widely panned upon the film\u2019s release on Christmas Day in 1990, with one newspaper describing her as \u201chopelessly amateurish\u201d. \u201cIt was embarrassing to be thrown out to the public in that kind of way,\u201d Coppola said in 2020. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t my dream to be an actress, so I wasn\u2019t crushed. I had other interests. It didn\u2019t destroy me.\u201d Coppola only acted twice more \u2013 once in an indie film called Inside Monkey Zetterland and again, sans dialogue, in a not-so-indie film called Star Wars Episode I \u2013 The Phantom Menace. Instead she became one of Hollywood\u2019s most celebrated female directors, responsible for films including The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette. What a happy ending!<\/p>\n
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New subscribers only. \u00a38.99\/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter <\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nM<\/span>ost movie stars can survive a flop or two<\/a>. But then there are roles that completely upend an actor\u2019s career, leaving them out of work or forever changed in the eye of the public.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s not really possible to talk about Faye Dunaway\u2019s career<\/a> without mentioning her notorious performance in Mommie Dearest, for instance. Or to google Brandon Routh in any other context than \u201cwhat happened to Superman Returns star Brandon Routh?\u201d <\/p>\nOften this is unfair \u2013 women historically tend to bear the brunt of career-shaking backlash, and there are typically many different reasons why movie stardom hits a wall. But whenever an actor does seem to drop off the radar, it\u2019s usually a specific film that is to blame.<\/p>\n
From Meg Ryan\u2019s unfairly maligned erotic thriller<\/a> to the body-swap comedy that prevented Judge Reinhold from becoming one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest comedy stars, here are 17 films that derailed the fortunes of their stars single-handed.<\/p>\nFaye Dunaway in <\/strong>Mommie Dearest<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nReleased in 1981, the Joan Crawford biopic Mommie Dearest \u2013 starring Faye Dunaway and adapted from a harrowing bestseller by Crawford\u2019s daughter Christina \u2013 painted the star in a less than flattering light. Namely, as an unhinged tyrant prone to chewing up her daughter as well as the scenery of every room she was in. The latter, in fairness, was more Dunaway\u2019s fault \u2013 and it promptly took a pick-axe to her leading-lady roles. She drew the worst reviews of her career, along with a Worst Actress Razzie, and Dunaway was so embarrassed by the film that she rarely spoke about it again. In a series of rare comments made in 2016, Dunaway said the film \u201cturned my career in a direction where people would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me,\u201d adding: \u201cThat\u2019s an awful hard thing to beat. I should have known better, but sometimes you\u2019re vulnerable and you don\u2019t realise what you\u2019re getting into.\u201d <\/p>\n
Elizabeth Berkley in <\/strong>Showgirls<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nExpectations were high for the release of Showgirls in 1995. It marked a reunion between Basic Instinct\u2019s director and screenwriter \u2013 Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas, respectively \u2013 while many assumed the film\u2019s star, the former Saved by the Bell actor Elizabeth Berkley, would be shot into the Hollywood stratosphere much like Sharon Stone after Basic Instinct. Then people actually saw Showgirls. While the film\u2019s reputation has (rightly!) turned around in the decades since<\/a> \u2013 along with appreciation for Berkley\u2019s broad and undeniably mesmerising performance \u2013 the film\u2019s dismal initial response cratered Berkley\u2019s fledgling movie career practically overnight. \u201cThere was so much cruelty around it,\u201d she said in 2020. \u201cI was bullied. And I didn\u2019t understand why I was being blamed. The job as an actor is to fulfil the vision of the director. And I did everything I was supposed to do. No one associated with the film spoke up on my behalf to protect me. I was left out in the cold and I was a pariah in the industry I had worked so hard for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<\/p>\nopen image in gallery<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nElizabeth Berkley in \u2018Showgirls\u2019 (Shutterstock)<\/span><\/div>\nShannen Doherty in <\/strong>Mallrats<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nWhen Shannen Doherty left the Nineties teen soap Beverly Hills 90210 in 1994, she had aspirations to launch a movie career. She had, after all, starred in a number of hit movies before going to TV, including the 1988 teen classic Heathers. But her choice of project \u2013 Kevin Smith\u2019s slacker comedy Mallrats, alongside then-unknowns including Ben Affleck and Jason Lee \u2013 was a box-office flop, and as the biggest name in the cast she took the blame. \u201cIt died and so did my film career,\u201d she said in 2024<\/a>. \u201cPeople literally thought that I was carrying the movie so [because] it was a box-office failure, it was completely on me. There was no film career after that, which was a little brutal.\u201d<\/p>\nDavid Caruso in <\/strong>Jade<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nNow best known for putting his sunglasses on and then taking them off again in the long-running CSI: Miami, David Caruso was at one point positioned to be a bonafide movie star. After a high-profile dispute with the show\u2019s producers over pay, he\u2019d left the cop drama NYPD Blue in a blaze of negative publicity in 1994 with designs on film stardom. But his two 1995 star vehicles, the cop actioner Kiss of Death and the erotic thriller Jade<\/a>, crashed and burned. The latter, for which he was paid a $2m salary, was the kind of expensive disaster that few could climb out from under, let alone an actor who\u2019d already burnt so many bridges in Hollywood. \u201cWhen Jade came out and did $4m at the box office, the town went silent,\u201d Caruso said in 1997. \u201cI could have taken my telephone and my answering machine and thrown them both in the dumpster.\u201d That year, he slunk back to TV.<\/p>\nSofia Coppola in <\/strong>The Godfather: Part III<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nNo one is exactly complaining about The Godfather: Part III killing Sofia Coppola\u2019s acting career, let alone Coppola herself \u2013 she never had a love for acting, and was only pulled into the movie by her father Francis at the last minute because a number of other actors were unavailable. Cast as Michael Corleone\u2019s doomed teenage daughter Mary, Coppola saw her performance widely panned upon the film\u2019s release on Christmas Day in 1990, with one newspaper describing her as \u201chopelessly amateurish\u201d. \u201cIt was embarrassing to be thrown out to the public in that kind of way,\u201d Coppola said in 2020. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t my dream to be an actress, so I wasn\u2019t crushed. I had other interests. It didn\u2019t destroy me.\u201d Coppola only acted twice more \u2013 once in an indie film called Inside Monkey Zetterland and again, sans dialogue, in a not-so-indie film called Star Wars Episode I \u2013 The Phantom Menace. Instead she became one of Hollywood\u2019s most celebrated female directors, responsible for films including The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette. What a happy ending!<\/p>\n
\n\n\n<\/p>\n\nWatch Apple TV+ free for 7 day<\/p>\n
New subscribers only. \u00a38.99\/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nM<\/span>ost movie stars can survive a flop or two<\/a>. But then there are roles that completely upend an actor\u2019s career, leaving them out of work or forever changed in the eye of the public.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not really possible to talk about Faye Dunaway\u2019s career<\/a> without mentioning her notorious performance in Mommie Dearest, for instance. Or to google Brandon Routh in any other context than \u201cwhat happened to Superman Returns star Brandon Routh?\u201d <\/p>\n Often this is unfair \u2013 women historically tend to bear the brunt of career-shaking backlash, and there are typically many different reasons why movie stardom hits a wall. But whenever an actor does seem to drop off the radar, it\u2019s usually a specific film that is to blame.<\/p>\n From Meg Ryan\u2019s unfairly maligned erotic thriller<\/a> to the body-swap comedy that prevented Judge Reinhold from becoming one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest comedy stars, here are 17 films that derailed the fortunes of their stars single-handed.<\/p>\n Released in 1981, the Joan Crawford biopic Mommie Dearest \u2013 starring Faye Dunaway and adapted from a harrowing bestseller by Crawford\u2019s daughter Christina \u2013 painted the star in a less than flattering light. Namely, as an unhinged tyrant prone to chewing up her daughter as well as the scenery of every room she was in. The latter, in fairness, was more Dunaway\u2019s fault \u2013 and it promptly took a pick-axe to her leading-lady roles. She drew the worst reviews of her career, along with a Worst Actress Razzie, and Dunaway was so embarrassed by the film that she rarely spoke about it again. In a series of rare comments made in 2016, Dunaway said the film \u201cturned my career in a direction where people would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me,\u201d adding: \u201cThat\u2019s an awful hard thing to beat. I should have known better, but sometimes you\u2019re vulnerable and you don\u2019t realise what you\u2019re getting into.\u201d <\/p>\n Expectations were high for the release of Showgirls in 1995. It marked a reunion between Basic Instinct\u2019s director and screenwriter \u2013 Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas, respectively \u2013 while many assumed the film\u2019s star, the former Saved by the Bell actor Elizabeth Berkley, would be shot into the Hollywood stratosphere much like Sharon Stone after Basic Instinct. Then people actually saw Showgirls. While the film\u2019s reputation has (rightly!) turned around in the decades since<\/a> \u2013 along with appreciation for Berkley\u2019s broad and undeniably mesmerising performance \u2013 the film\u2019s dismal initial response cratered Berkley\u2019s fledgling movie career practically overnight. \u201cThere was so much cruelty around it,\u201d she said in 2020. \u201cI was bullied. And I didn\u2019t understand why I was being blamed. The job as an actor is to fulfil the vision of the director. And I did everything I was supposed to do. No one associated with the film spoke up on my behalf to protect me. I was left out in the cold and I was a pariah in the industry I had worked so hard for.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Elizabeth Berkley in \u2018Showgirls\u2019 (Shutterstock)<\/span><\/div>\n When Shannen Doherty left the Nineties teen soap Beverly Hills 90210 in 1994, she had aspirations to launch a movie career. She had, after all, starred in a number of hit movies before going to TV, including the 1988 teen classic Heathers. But her choice of project \u2013 Kevin Smith\u2019s slacker comedy Mallrats, alongside then-unknowns including Ben Affleck and Jason Lee \u2013 was a box-office flop, and as the biggest name in the cast she took the blame. \u201cIt died and so did my film career,\u201d she said in 2024<\/a>. \u201cPeople literally thought that I was carrying the movie so [because] it was a box-office failure, it was completely on me. There was no film career after that, which was a little brutal.\u201d<\/p>\n Now best known for putting his sunglasses on and then taking them off again in the long-running CSI: Miami, David Caruso was at one point positioned to be a bonafide movie star. After a high-profile dispute with the show\u2019s producers over pay, he\u2019d left the cop drama NYPD Blue in a blaze of negative publicity in 1994 with designs on film stardom. But his two 1995 star vehicles, the cop actioner Kiss of Death and the erotic thriller Jade<\/a>, crashed and burned. The latter, for which he was paid a $2m salary, was the kind of expensive disaster that few could climb out from under, let alone an actor who\u2019d already burnt so many bridges in Hollywood. \u201cWhen Jade came out and did $4m at the box office, the town went silent,\u201d Caruso said in 1997. \u201cI could have taken my telephone and my answering machine and thrown them both in the dumpster.\u201d That year, he slunk back to TV.<\/p>\n No one is exactly complaining about The Godfather: Part III killing Sofia Coppola\u2019s acting career, let alone Coppola herself \u2013 she never had a love for acting, and was only pulled into the movie by her father Francis at the last minute because a number of other actors were unavailable. Cast as Michael Corleone\u2019s doomed teenage daughter Mary, Coppola saw her performance widely panned upon the film\u2019s release on Christmas Day in 1990, with one newspaper describing her as \u201chopelessly amateurish\u201d. \u201cIt was embarrassing to be thrown out to the public in that kind of way,\u201d Coppola said in 2020. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t my dream to be an actress, so I wasn\u2019t crushed. I had other interests. It didn\u2019t destroy me.\u201d Coppola only acted twice more \u2013 once in an indie film called Inside Monkey Zetterland and again, sans dialogue, in a not-so-indie film called Star Wars Episode I \u2013 The Phantom Menace. Instead she became one of Hollywood\u2019s most celebrated female directors, responsible for films including The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette. What a happy ending!<\/p>\n Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day<\/p>\n New subscribers only. \u00a38.99\/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nFaye Dunaway in <\/strong>Mommie Dearest<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Berkley in <\/strong>Showgirls<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nShannen Doherty in <\/strong>Mallrats<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
David Caruso in <\/strong>Jade<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Sofia Coppola in <\/strong>The Godfather: Part III<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"Madonna](\"https:\/\/static.independent.co.uk\/2024\/05\/07\/16\/newFile-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Geena](\"https:\/\/static.independent.co.uk\/2024\/05\/07\/16\/newFile-6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Catherine](\"https:\/\/static.independent.co.uk\/2024\/05\/07\/16\/newFile-5-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Jennifer](\"https:\/\/static.independent.co.uk\/2024\/05\/07\/16\/newFile-4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n