Matt Damon knew The Great Wall was a big ol' dud while he was filming it.
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00:00It's easy to forget that acting is a job first and foremost, and few actors are blessed
00:05with the luxury of only appearing in movies which speak to them on a personally and creatively
00:09fulfilling level.
00:11Given the many variables that go into a movie's creation, actors aren't always aware of
00:15quite the calibre project they're starring in, whether good or bad.
00:19But sometimes a script hits one of the two extremes so ferociously that they know precisely
00:24what they're in for from the jump.
00:26And while it's hardly news if an actor says they knew a great movie would be great from
00:30the moment they read the script, it's far more interesting to hear actors admit they
00:34knew movies would suck from day one.
00:36And so with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with 10 actors who knew
00:41the movie was doomed on day one.
00:4310.
00:44Channing Tatum in Jupiter Ascending
00:47The Wachowskis' 2015 sci-fi blockbuster Jupiter Ascending was certainly an ambitious
00:53attempt at kickstarting a major new tentpole universe, albeit one that failed to strike
00:58much of a chord with critics or general audiences.
01:02Despite praise for the visual effects and the memorable Chicago chase sequence, the
01:06script and Eddie Redmayne's Razzie-winning performance were largely panned, and it failed
01:10to recoup its $210 million at the box office.
01:15Co-star Channing Tatum, who has never been one to mince words about his career disappointments,
01:19spoke out recently about the exhausting experience of shooting the film, which he knew wasn't
01:24coming together as soon as he started working on it.
01:27He said in an interview with Variety,
01:29"'Jupiter Ascending' was a nightmare from the jump.
01:31It was a sideways movie.
01:33All of us were there for seven months, bursting our hump.
01:36It was just tough."
01:37Tatum also went on to criticise his own performance in the film, feeling that his work suffered
01:43from a lack of energy due to shooting four movies back-to-back without any time off.
01:48That said, Tatum's performance in Jupiter Ascending is far from the worst thing about
01:52it.
01:539.
01:54Emily Blunt in Gulliver's Travels
01:56It's not much of a secret that Emily Blunt was actually the first choice to play Black
02:01Widow in Iron Man 2, but she was forced to turn down the role due to a stand-in contractual
02:07agreement with Fox, who demanded that she appear in the Jack Black-led Gulliver's Travels
02:12instead.
02:13Gulliver's Travels went on to score largely negative reviews from critics and failed to
02:17turn a profit on its monstrously over-egged $112 million budget.
02:22During a recent interview with Howard Sturm, Blunt called missing out on Black Widow a
02:26bit of a heartbreak, and went on to rather diplomatically explain that she knew Gulliver's
02:31Travels was a dud project from the get-go.
02:34Blunt added, however, that she has no ill will against anyone who worked on the film
02:37and had fun shooting it regardless of her own lack of desire to appear in it.
02:41She went on to say,
02:42There were a lot of really lovely people who were heaven to work with.
02:46I actually had a good time, a laugh with all of them, but it irked my heart for it to have
02:50happened in the first place.
02:518.
02:52Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper in Super Mario Bros
02:571993's Super Mario Bros may endure almost 30 years later as a bewildering cult classic,
03:04but make no mistake, it was a major failure upon release.
03:07Demolished by critics and fans alike for its script and deviations from the video game
03:11source material, it was a critical flop and abysmal box office disaster.
03:16It won't surprise anyone who's seen the film to learn that the movie's production
03:20was abject chaos.
03:22In his 2007 autobiography, co-star John Leguizamo, who plays Luigi in the film, revealed that
03:28he and Bob Hoskins, who played Mario, were fully aware they were in a train wreck, and
03:32would regularly get drunk on set just to make it through the day's shoot.
03:367.
03:37Sean William Scott in Mr. Woodcock Don't feel bad if you don't remember Mr.
03:42Woodcock, a comedy starring Sean William Scott, Billy Bob Thornton, and Susan Sarandon that
03:47came and went in a blip in the summer of 2007 amid negative reviews while doing little box
03:53office business.
03:54In a 2009 interview, the ever-chill Scott talked openly about the movie's failure,
03:59straight up admitting that he and co-star Thornton knew it sucked while they were filming
04:03it.
04:04He said,
04:05Thankfully for Scott, Mr. Woodcock was enough of a non-entity that it was quickly forgotten,
04:18and basically caused his career no harm at all.
04:216.
04:22Edward Norton in The Italian Job F. Gary Gray's 2003 remake of The Italian
04:28Job saw Edward Norton playing the role of villain Steve Frizzelli, but Norton made no
04:32bones about the fact that he wanted nothing to do with the movie.
04:36In a similar situation to Emily Blunt, Norton only appeared in the film due to a contractual
04:40requirement from Paramount, who had signed him to a multi-picture deal.
04:45Norton had turned down numerous proposed projects from the studio and balked at the idea of
04:49starring in The Italian Job, until Paramount tied Norton up in litigation and forced him
04:54to appear in the film for $1 million, a mere fraction of his usual $10 million fee at the
04:59time.
05:00Watching the film, it's clear that Norton isn't thrilled about the experience, though
05:04ironically, his performance ended up receiving the bulk of the film's critical praise.
05:08While The Italian Job wasn't an outright disaster like most of the films on this list,
05:13it settled for broadly positive reviews and turning a modest profit, albeit failing to
05:17launch the wider franchise, namely a planned sequel, The Brazilian Job, Paramount was clearly
05:23hoping for.
05:245.
05:25Jamie Lee Curtis in Virus
05:28Jamie Lee Curtis is one of the straightest shooters you'll ever find in Hollywood and
05:32has never been scared to speak her mind about her past projects, success or failure.
05:37But there's one movie in her filmography that she regards as a unique brand of misfire,
05:42and that's 1999's sci-fi horror film Virus.
05:45Beyond praise for its visual effects, the film was near-universally panned by critics,
05:50and despite Universal splashing out on action figures and video game tie-ins, it failed
05:55to recoup even half of its $75 million price tag.
06:00In an interview with When back in 2010, Curtis singled out Virus as the only film in her
06:05career where she went into it knowing it was a dud and was unable to do anything to change
06:10that fact.
06:11She said,
06:12That's a piece of shit movie.
06:13It's an unbelievably bad movie.
06:15Just bad from the bottom.
06:16It was maybe the only time I've known something was just bad and there was nothing I could
06:20do about it.
06:21Curtis seems to have a sense of humour about its failure, though, telling IGN in 2003 that
06:26it's fun to compare terrible movies with her friends in the business.
06:30She said,
06:31That's the only good reason to be in bad movies.
06:33Then, when your friends have bad movies, you can say, ah, I've got the best one.
06:36I'm bringing Virus.
06:38Never change, Jamie Lee.
06:404.
06:41Bruce Willis in Cop Out
06:43The production of Kevin Smith's 2010 buddy cop movie Cop Out sounds utterly miserable,
06:49with Smith going on the record to say that star Bruce Willis was a miserable, uncooperative
06:53presence throughout shooting and wouldn't even participate in promotional duties, ultimately
06:58calling the experience soul-crushing.
07:01This was, of course, a long time before Willis' unfortunate recent medical diagnosis, which
07:06prompted Smith to call his prior comments petty.
07:08Yet, it doesn't take much reading between the lines to see that Bruce knew he was in
07:12a dud and just couldn't muster the effort to turn it on, so to speak.
07:16Given that Willis turned in solid performances in Red, Lay the Favourite, Moonrise Kingdom,
07:21and Looper in the two years that followed Cop Out, it clearly wasn't a case of him
07:25being generally disinterested in actually acting, but simply knowing the project was
07:30no good.
07:313.
07:32Whoopi Goldberg in Theodore Rex
07:34Granted, a comatose person could probably have realised that Theodore Rex was going
07:38to be a terrible movie, let alone star Whoopi Goldberg, who verbally agreed to star in the
07:43buddy sci-fi comedy in 1992 and was then litigated into holding up her end of the bargain
07:49after attempting to back out.
07:51Goldberg evidently knew the project was a disaster then, which went on to receive Universal
07:56Critical Scorn and also net Goldberg a Razzie nomination for Worst Actress.
08:01Worse still, New Line Cinema ultimately decided to release Theodore Rex straight to video,
08:07which with its $33.5 million budget, made it the most expensive direct-to-video movie
08:12ever at the time.
08:14Goldberg was however paid $7 million for the role, and while she clearly knew it was a
08:18dreadful movie from the outset, there are certainly worse outcomes than being paid more
08:23money than most people will ever see in several lifetimes to make a terrible film.
08:272.
08:28Matt Damon in The Great Wall
08:302016's The Great Wall was a sci-fi monster movie co-produced by American and Chinese
08:36movie studios, starring Matt Damon as a European mercenary who joins forces with Chinese warriors
08:42to help battle an alien threat emerging by the Great Wall of China.
08:46Despite being directed by the great Zhang Yimou and boasting a stellar supporting cast
08:51including Willem Dafoe and Pedro Pascal, The Great Wall received largely negative reviews
08:56for both its weirdly boring execution and accusations that it was perpetuating yet another
09:01white saviour narrative.
09:03Though the film went on to gross $334.9 million globally, its $150 million budget and large
09:11marketing spend meant it ultimately failed to turn a profit.
09:15While star Damon has largely kept quiet about the film in the years since, last summer he
09:19did break his silence and confirm that he knew the project wasn't working when he
09:23saw how director Yimou was being pressured by financiers to change his vision for the
09:28film.
09:29He said in an interview with Marc Maron,
09:31I was like, this is exactly how disasters happen.
09:34It doesn't cohere.
09:35It doesn't work as a movie.
09:36I came to consider that the definition of a professional actor.
09:40Knowing you're in a turkey and going, okay, I've got four more months.
09:43It's the up at dawn siege on Hamburger Hill.
09:46I'm definitely going to die here, but I'm doing it.
09:481.
09:49Matthew Broderick in Deck the Halls
09:52Christmas comedy Deck the Halls was released in late 2006 to near-universal critical disdain
09:58while failing to lure in even the most undemanding of audiences, hopped up on eggnog and turkey.
10:04It was unable to recoup its oddly hefty $51 million budget.
10:09According to a 2013 episode of How Did This Get Made, which featured one of the film's
10:13cast members, Gillian Vickman, the three leads weren't thrilled about being on set.
10:18Christian Chenoweth, who is still reeling from breaking up with Aaron Sorkin and spent
10:22much of the shoot in tears, Danny DeVito flew in to do the bare minimum required of him,
10:27and then there's Matthew Broderick.
10:29Broderick, who reportedly spent months training with a real speed skater for the film's speed
10:34skating sequence, was spotted on set shaking his head and saying to himself, I've hit
10:38rock bottom.
10:39Evidently, Broderick knew he was starring in a Christmas turkey.
10:43But unlike Chenoweth and DeVito, he managed to avoid scoring a Razzie nomination.
10:48Silver linings though, right?
10:50And that concludes our list.
10:52If you can think of any we missed, then do let us know in the comments below and while
10:55you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
10:59Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias
11:03just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:05I've been Ellie with What Culture, I hope you have a magical day and I'll see you real
11:09soon.