7) Christopher Reeve – Superman IV: The Quest For Peace
Christopher Reeve was considered by a lot of fans to be the embodiment of Superman. With his tall stature, good moral outlook, and charisma, he helped make the character’s big screen debut in 1978’s Superman a memorable one for fans and audiences.
The big success guaranteed a series, but little did everyone know that there would be production problems, starting with Superman II wherein director Richard Lester and producer Ilya Salkind screwed over Richard Donner in order to gain the creative reins. Superman III, meanwhile, ended up being an avenue for famed comedian Richard Pryor to do all sorts of nonsensical gags for the purpose of drawing a laugh.
It seemed almost certain that Superman IV: The Quest for Peace would be yet another disaster, and it was. With a constantly diminishing budget, idiotic villain, and lazy script that had Superman gain telekinetic powers, the movie ended up flopping and destroying the franchise for many years, along with Reeves’ reputation as the character. The only good thing to come out of it was the actor managed to secure funding for his own personal project Street Smart, which ended up exponentially launching actor Morgan Freeman’s career.