12 Celebrities Who Are Oscar Winners But Their Next Film Was A Total Failure
In reality, a successful career can quickly start to decline.
Without a doubt, every actor's desire is to win an Academy Award. An Oscar winner has undoubtedly captured the attention of the film industry, and their name will be sought for the upcoming $1 billion film project.
To understand the magnitude of an Oscar winner's influence, we must point out that an Oscar nomination is even seen as a success for an actor. A superb movie role can be offered to someone who is successful enough to be nominated for an Oscar.
Even an Oscar, though, cannot ensure an award-winning actor's continued professional success. You will understand why we said so in a bit.
We can all agree that acting is one of the most cutthroat professions in the world; actors must maintain their caliber before another actor takes their place. In reality, a successful career can quickly start to decline, and there are many reasons for it.
Consider a few years ago when a slew of well-known actors began to dominate the movie industry. Amazingly, though, there were several actors whose performances in subsequent films earned unfavorable reviews right away.
The actors whose next films were total flops after winning an Oscar are listed below. So keep scrolling down to see them!
1. Rami Malek
He rose to stardom as the protagonist in “Mr. Robot” and triumphed at the Oscars over prominent names such as Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper. However, Malek’s next role as Chee Chee the gorilla in 2020’s forgettable “Dolittle” certainly let the audience down.
The movie was excoriated by critics, who focused mostly on the bizarre leading performance from Robert Downey Jr. and the horrible script, while also remaining unimpressed by the all-star animal voice cast.
20th Century Studios/Universal Pictures2. Jennifer Lawrence
She rose to stardom by starring in X-Men films and headlining “The Hunger Games” franchise, winning Best Actress for “Silver Linings Playbook.” Her success at age 22 meant she could pick whatever project she liked moving forward.
However, a horror film she appeared in during the fall of 2010, months before her “Winter’s Bone” Oscar nomination that would put her on the map, was postponed by the studio for a while. They decided to premiere “House at the End of the Street” several years later, after Lawrence’s Oscar win, to maximize the box office potential of what became a roundly awful movie. Critics loathed it, finding it primarily devoid of actual scares and its plot largely incomprehensible.
The Weinstein Company/Relativity Media3. Charlize Theron
She won Best Actress in 2003 for “Monster,” and Theron’s all-out commitment won her the Oscar in future films like “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Atomic Blonde.” Soon after, Theron delivered a letdown in the form of the cliché-ridden and critically loathed “Head in the Clouds” in 2004.
In many ways, the film was the polar opposite of “Monster.” It was a gauzy historical drama set against the backdrop of World War II that followed a very attractive love triangle (or love triad, perhaps) among Theron and the equally glamorous Stuart Townsend and Penelope Cruz. Treacly, flat, and forgettable, “Head in the Clouds” was a misfire from Charlize Theron that was unfortunately timed just after her crowning Oscar glory.
Newmarket Films/Sony Pictures Classics
4. Gary Oldman
The Best Actor for 2017’s “Darkest Hour,” which was his second Oscar, pursued a more successful stage in his career, but his next move soon became a nightmare.
After portraying one of history’s most outstanding figures, Winston Churchill, on the Oscar podium, hardly anyone was interested in seeing Oldman play just some general in another dime-a-dozen war film. If they were, they had numerous superior choices like “Air Force One” or “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” from Oldman’s filmography to choose from.
Focus Features/Lionsgate
5. Jamie Foxx
He had the rare honor at the 77th Academy Awards of being nominated for two different acting Oscars in two different categories: Best Supporting Actor for “Collateral,” which he lost to Morgan Freeman (“Million Dollar Baby”); and Best Actor for “Ray,” which he effortlessly won over Don Cheadle (“Hotel Rwanda”) and Leonardo DiCaprio (“The Aviator”). His bright and shining new star power wouldn’t help his next feature, 2005’s “Stealth.”
A forgettable, critically panned film that lazily mashed up “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Top Gun,” “Stealth” starred Foxx alongside Josh Lucas and Jessica Biel as human pilots facing a rogue AI drone. “Stealth” would hardly recoup half of its $135 million budget and quickly turned into another failed blockbuster on the ash heap of history, where Jamie Foxx prefers it to stay.
Universal Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing
6. Hilary Swank
Five years after winning the Best Actress Oscar for “Boys Don’t Cry” in 1999 in a star-making portrayal, she entered the elite ranks of actors with multiple Oscars for leading roles with another victory for “Million Dollar Baby” in 2004. One of the most brilliant and successful films in director-writer-star Clint Eastwood’s long career, “Million Dollar Baby” impressed critics on its way to winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor (for the ever-reliable Morgan Freeman) in addition to Swank’s statue.
However, Swank’s next role was a disappointment that marked the beginning of a downhill trajectory in her career in the following years. Brian De Palma invited her to play a femme fatale in a high-profile adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel “The Black Dahlia,” which was doomed to draw unflattering comparisons to the seminal Ellroy adaptation “L.A. Confidential” from the start.
Audiences despised “The Black Dahlia” to the tune of a cringeworthy “D+” grade from CinemaScore.
Warner Bros./Universal Pictures
7. Christoph Waltz
Among the many actors and actresses who have portrayed notable roles in Quentin Tarantino’s movies, only one of them has won Oscar gold: Christoph Waltz, who won Best Supporting Actor for 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds” and again only three years later for “Django Unchained.” However, Waltz decided to portray another villain in the colossal flop “The Green Hornet” in 2011.
Although the actor did his best in an underwritten role as a paranoid gangster, he failed to create a villain as impressive as Hans Landa soon after winning an Oscar.
The Weinstein Company/Sony Pictures Releasing
8. Jared Leto
He won the Best Supporting Actor award in 2013 for “Dallas Buyers Club,” transforming himself by losing 30 pounds to portray a transgender woman dealing with HIV. His next movie project was a step back in 2016’s “Suicide Squad,” not to be confused with the subsequent (and much better) “The Suicide Squad” in 2021.
DC’s first film about the squad of anti-heroes was critically drubbed despite making a fair amount of money, and generally, Leto failed to bring the high bar set by his predecessors Jack Nicholson and the late Heath Ledger to life in playing the iconic Batman villain The Joker. It didn’t help that “Suicide Squad” was poorly written and choppily edited together after requiring multiple reshoots.
Focus Features/Warner Bros.
9. Natalie Portman
Her Oscar-winning portrayal in “Black Swan” was a showcase role for her and remains a testament to the successful career that has taken her from child prodigy to “Star Wars” and back around to A-list status in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While “No Strings Attached” wasn’t so horrible, receiving reviews that largely betrayed dissatisfaction with the star power involved, the two romantic comedies with highly similar premises will be recognized as a missed opportunity: why not just have Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher star in one film and combine forces?
Perhaps Natalie Portman would have paired better with “Friends With Benefits” co-star Justin Timberlake.
Fox Searchlight Pictures/Paramount Pictures
10. Helen Hunt
She was known for the sitcom “Mad About You” and took a starring role in 1997’s “As Good As It Gets,” going toe-to-toe with the legendary Jack Nicholson. Thanks to her performance in that film, she won an Oscar for Best Actress.
After that, she returned to the silver screen in “Dr. T and the Women,” which was a flop. “Dr. T and the Women” is one of the few films to receive a straight-up “F” from audience pollster CinemaScore (per Vulture), and it couldn’t recoup its meager budget at the box office.
Sony Pictures Releasing/Artisan Entertainment
11. Sandra Bullock
She won an Oscar in 2010 for her role in “The Blind Side.” While there were some critics, audiences unanimously agreed that Bullock’s portrayal as a fierce and protective southern matriarch was the unquestionable highlight.
Still, her next role would be in 2011’s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” a movie that doubled down on perhaps the touchiest “based on a true story” material possible in contemporary America: the events of 9/11. An adaptation of a Jonathan Safran Foer novel, the movie polarized critics right down the middle and was the opposite of a “Blind Side”-like grower at the box office, disappearing immediately.
Warner Bros.
12. Eddie Redmayne
In 2014, he won an Oscar for portraying the cherished scientific icon Stephen Hawking, earning rave reviews in the biopic “The Theory of Everything.” Redmayne truly made us reach for tissues and was a straightforward favorite for a golden statue.
Unfortunately, his next role was a total left turn into the Wachowski sisters’ bad-acid-trip “Jupiter Ascending.” The actor portrayed the arrogant villain, and while this movie was praised for its world-building, it was met with extreme indifference and confusion from critics, stalling immediately at the box office upon release.
Its singularly WTF-inducing vibe, like “Dune” combined with a teen drama on The CW, might give it iconic status someday, but as an Oscar follow-up for Redmayne, it was a head-scratcher.
Focus Features/Universal Pictures
An Oscar evening is the most prestigious awards show in Hollywood; the ultimate recognition, a stamp of approval given to the top performers in the fields of acting, directing, screenwriting, producing, costume design, and makeup. However, an actor's career can change after winning an Oscar.
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