10 Great Casts Who Wasted Their Talent On Bad Movies

In a way, we're trained to expect certain things from Hollywood, as the countless films released year after year exhibit certain patterns over time. For instance, we expect greatness from proven directors, and exemplary performances from talented actors and actresses. Sometimes, Hollywood lives up to the standards its set for itself, and sometimes... things just don't work out the way they were supposed to. No one is perfect, so it's understandable that not everything work out exactly as planned. However, that doesn't mean we don't sometimes leave theaters disappointed and saddened by the thoughts of what could have been. Sadly, even the greatest actors make poor career choices from time to time, and occasionally waste their talents on movies undeserving of their greatness. On that note, here are ten examples of this strange but unavoidable phenomenon. Be warned, disappointment may abound as you stare at these very talented casts and think, "what happened here?!" 10) The Ladykillers The Ladykillers was a film that showed all signs of success before hitting the theater. Not only is the black comedy written, produced, and directed by the masterful Coen Brothers, but it sports an impressive cast that includes Tom Hanks, J.K. Simmons, Irma P. Hall (A Family Thing, Soul Food), Stephen Root (Office Space, O Brother, Where Art Thou?), Tzi Ma (Red Doors, The Dance and the Railroad), Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy), and Marlon Wayans (Scary Movie). Okay, Wayans is a bit of a wildcard there, but he can be quite good with the right material. Unfortunately for all involved, The Ladykillers is certainly not the right material, which is a shame when you consider that the original 1955 film starring Alec Guinnes has a whopping 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, nearly double the dismal 55% score that the Coens' remake walked off with. While it's arguable that the actors themselves are fine in their roles, especially Hanks, the film falls completely flat and is one of the few stains on the Coens' remarkable filmography. Funnily enough, they almost didn't even direct here, and were originally only hired to write it. Their former cinematographer, Barry Sonnenfeld, was in line to direct but backed out of the project. The Coens then took over, but perhaps this is a project they should have left in someone else's hands instead. 9) Nine Daniel Day-Lewis is often regarded as the best actor of our time and is known to be extremely selective with his projects. My question for you, Mr. Day-Lewis, is what the hell were you doing in Nine? On paper, Nine looked like a surefire hit. With Day-Lewis in the lead (going full-on-method as usual, learning Italian for the role) and Chicago director Rob Marshall at the helm, this live-action re-imagining of the Maury Yeston musical (which itself is based on the classic Federico Fellini film 8 1/2) should have been a home run. Marshall wowed audiences seven years previously with Chicago, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and was fully expected to do so again. Nine, however, is no Chicago, as the dismal 37% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes will tell you. It's a shame, too, because Marshall managed to surround Day- Lewis by an excellent cast that included Academy Award winners Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Sophie Loren. If anything, Nine proves that even the pickiest and most awarded actors and actresses make terrible movies. 8) All The King's Men The 2006 adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren is another movie that shows that Oscar clout isn't everything. The film had a lot going for it, both behind and in front of the camera, but was a massive critical and financial failure nonetheless. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Gangs of New York, Moneyball, and Schindler's List) directed All the King's Men, but failed to tap into the things that made his previous work so successful. Despite a star-studded cast that included Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile) and Anthony Hopkins, All the King's Men failed to live up to its potential and was one form of Oscar bait that nobody bit into. 7) Eye For An Eye While many films on this list feature large casts full of talented individuals, even smaller films have shown that the best actors don't always make the best career choices. Take 1996's Eye for an Eye, for example, a crime thriller starring Academy Award-winner Sally Field, Emmy winner Kiefer Sutherland and four-time Academy Award nominee Ed Harris. Despite its star studded cast and Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man) steering the ship, Eye for an Eye is a tragic misstep that sports a very sour 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. Based on the well-received Erika Holzer novel of the same name, Eye for an Eye features Field as a mother who is forced to listen to her teenage daughter get raped over the phone. When the legal system fails to capture the rapist, Field's character takes it into her own hands to enact swift justice. What follows is your run-of-the-mill B-movie thriller that somehow managed to pull in an A-list cast and director, while offending the audience with its mean-spirited and crude proceedings. Luckily, all involved were able to bounce back from this major setback in their careers, leaving Eye for an Eye to rot away in the depths of the "psychological thriller" category on Netflix. 6) Alexander Alexander is another film that looked great on paper, but accomplished nothing but disappointment on the big screen. How Oliver Stone managed to turn the story of Alexander the Great, one of the most important and powerful men in human history, into such a plodding and disappointing biopic is an extraordinary feat in itself. Stone certainly had the proper people in place to fill the cast. Colin Ferrell stars as the titular conqueror, while Angelina Jolie, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson, Val Kilmer, Game of Thrones' Rory McCann, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' Toby Kebbell, Christopher Plummer and Anthony Hopkins round out the supporting cast. Upon release, Alexander walked away with scathing reviews that called it "an excruciating disaster for the ages," and "a lunk-headed train wreck that looks like a tag sale in a 323 B.C. supermarket in old Peking." Ouch. Stone never quite recovered from the three-hour mess that was Alexander and has continued making disappointing films for the last ten years. His cast, however, have managed to fare just fine, making this little misstep ancient history in their otherwise stellar careers. 5) Green Lantern As the superhero genre grows, so does the list of Oscar-worthy talent that have gravitated toward it. There was a time when actors saw starring or even appearing in a comic book film "beneath them," but that has dramatically changed in today's superhero-driven landscape. Now, comic book films are chock-full of Academy Award-winning and nominated talent, including Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey, Jr., Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Amy Adams and more. Unfortunately, even a great cast doesn't mean that you'll get an enjoyable comic book film. Warner Brothers' 2011 abomination Green Lantern is proof of that. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as the titular hero, who's surrounded by high-profile talent like Mark Strong, Peter Sarsgaard, Angela Bassett, Tim Robbins, Clancy Brown, Michael Clarke Duncan and Geoffrey Rush. Director Martin Campbell just couldn't get a grasp on Green Lantern's fantastical elements, and failed to let his cast ground the proceedings. Instead, he covers most of them in bad makeup or poorly rendered CGI. That's probably best for them though, because the more distance they can put between themselves and this mess, the better. 4) Ocean's Twelve Oceans Twelve is perhaps a disappointment solely because of how great and refreshing Ocean's Eleven was. When you think about it, Steven Soderbergh's remake of the 1960 classic is better than it has any right to be and succeeds thanks not only to Soderbergh's direction, but also becuase of the great cast he managed to assemble: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle, Andy Garcia, Bernie Mac, Scott Caan, Casey Affleck, Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould, Eddie Jemison and Shaobo Qin. They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, and that holds true for Ocean's Twelve, a movie that falls far short of its predecessor, even with the added talents of Catherine Zeta-Jones, Eddie Izzard, Jared Harris, Albert Finney, and Vincent Cassel. It's certainly not the cast's fault, as they are all equally enjoyable as they were the first time around. Soderbergh bites off a bit more than he can chew with this follow-up, skipping the fresh, fun and fast-paced heist that made the first so enjoyable and replacing those elements with a more convoluted plot and sloppy storytelling. Thankfully, things went back to normal with Ocean's Thirteen, which rounded out the trilogy with a bang. Ironically, Soderbergh's stated that Twelve is his favorite Oceans film, which is a very Soderbergh thing to do, don't you think? 3) The Men Who Stare At Goats When you bring together the likes of George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, Ewan McGreggor, Stephen Root, Stephen Lang and J.K. Simmons for a wacky and mind boggling true story, you expect greatness. Sadly, The Men Who Stare at Goats is anything but. Bob Wilton's bizarre true story tells of a group of soldiers who believe that they're "Warrior Monks" of the New Earth Army, whose psychic powers will forever chance the way wars are fought. It's material that's almost too good for the big screen, and in the right hands very well could have been. Unfortunately though, director Grant Heslov doesn't quite manage to wrangle in all of the film's quirky elements, leading to a disjointed and frustratingly derivative dark comedy that looks like it was more fun to make than it is to watch. 2) The Monuments Men Hm... The Monuments Men is the third film on this list to star George Clooney... am I sensing a pattern here? Clooney, as fantastic of an actor as he is, doesn't always pick the best projects. He's almost always great in them, but every now and again he finds a standout role in a film that just doesn't work. This year's The Monuments Men, which he also directed, is one of those films. The Monuments Men very well could, and should, have been Ocean's Eleven set during World War II. The film stars Clooney, his Ocean's co-star Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Bob Balaban (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Jean Dujardin (The Artist) and Cate Blanchett as an unlikely platoon of sent into German-occupied countries to retrieve and protect priceless works of art in order to avoid the destruction of 1,000 years worth of Jewish culture. The true-life story is another that's perhaps too big for the big screen, and Clooney never effectively portrays the depth and emotion of the events effectively. The Monuments Men is frustratingly flat, slow paced, and well... very, very boring. 1) Movie 43 Yep, you're looking at a screenshot showing Academy Award nominee Hugh Jackman dangling a pair of testicles from his neck directly above Academy Award winner Kate Winslet. No, this isn't some sick joke, this is an actual screenshot from Movie 43. Movie 43 sports a staggeringly large cast of actors who really should have known better. The crude, offensive, twisted, and rather idiotic 2013 comedy stars the likes of Winslet, Jackman, Naomi Watts, Chris Pratt, Emma Stone, Uma Thurman, Halle Berry, Elizabeth Banks, Sean William Scott, Jason Sudeikis, Anna Faris, Liev Schreiber, Justin Long, Gerard Butler, Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, and Chloe Grace Moretz as well of a handful of other actors and actresses who succeed only in horribly embarrassing themselves. Most of the films on this list were made with the best intentions, but failed to hit the mark. Movie 43 is in a league all its own, and truly stands out as a head-scratching abomination in the filmographies of some truly talented individuals who were clearly out for nothing more than a paycheck. Tell us, what did you think of this list? There are definitely movies we missed, so sound off with your picks for great casts who wasted their talents on bad movies in the comment section below!