Random Actors Who Aren't Ashamed Of Their Flops (14 items)

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  (#4) Dustin Hoffman

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  1987's superflop Ishtar is one of the most notorious films in all of Hollywood history. As it fell victim to extensive delays and a ballooning budget, the movie was denounced before it even came out and has gone on to become (arguably unfairly) labeled as one of the worst movies of all time. While it's obvious that both critics and audiences weren't exactly in love with the film, there are many worse movies from 1987 alone (hello again, Jaws: The Revenge). 

  While the film's production in Morocco was certainly turbulent, star Dustin Hoffman looks back on Ishtar fondly. In a 2009 interview with Ain't It Cool News, Hoffman explained:

  The thing I love about [Ishtar] - and I love it with all of its flaws - is that it has a statement to make. And that is: It is far, far better to spend a life being second rate in something that you're passionate about, than to spend a life being first-rate at that which you are not passionate about. I thought that was worth making a movie about.
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  (#14) Bruce Willis

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  In addition to being a true box office flop - grossing just over $17 million domestically on a reported $65 million budget - 1991's action-comedy Hudson Hawk was dismissed by critics at the time. Star Bruce Willis had more at stake than usual with the project, cowriting the theme song as well as having a "story by" credit. 

  It's evident that Hudson Hawk was a bit of a passion project for Willis, and he still defends the movie when it invariably comes up in interviews. While doing promo for Looper in 2012, Willis was asked about the 1991 bomb by HuffPost's Mike Ryan. "I like it a lot," Willis explained. "I still take pride in that film. it was just a little outside the realm of what people [expected]."
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  (#11) Taylor Kitsch

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  2012's Disney blockbuster John Carter didn't garner entirely negative reviews when it came out, but they weren't all that hot, either. A harmless summer romp, John Carter is remembered today for being synonymous with the phrase "box office bomb." It lost Disney around $150 million, but its star looks back on the project with nothing but fondness.

  During a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Taylor Kitsch opened up about the movie. "...I learned a ton on that movie," he exclaimed. "I honestly don’t see it as a failure. I have great memories from it, and I still talk to a bunch of the cast. It is what it is, right?"
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  (#8) Cybill Shepherd

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  At Long Last Love is a 1975 musical comedy that was nearly lost to time. It was lambasted by critics at the time of its release and barely made a blip at the box office. Written and directed by Peter Bogdanovich, the wunderkind director behind The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, At Long Last Love only had one home video release (in 1981) until it was finally released again in 2013 on Blu-ray in an alternate cut, prompting reappraisal from critics like The New Yorker's Richard Brody, who claims the film is a "masterwork."

  Cybill Shepherd, who was in a relationship with Bogdanovich at the time of filming, reflects on the production with nothing but positive memories. In an interview with RogerEbert.com, Shepherd called her time working on the film "a complete joy and one of my happiest experiences."
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  (#12) Uma Thurman

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  Batman & Robin (1997) has the distinct reputation of being the worst Batman film of all time and for putting the franchise in the grave for nearly a decade. The misguided movie takes what Tim Burton was doing with the Dark Knight in his two successful Bat-pictures and throws it out the window. Batman & Robin tries to hark back to the 1960s Adam West show by dialing up the camp to 11, forgetting to bring the charm with it. 

  Uma Thurman stars as Poison Ivy, one of the villains, and she thinks the film was unfairly railed on by fans who were threatened by the campiness. She told HuffPost in 2014: 

  I think at the time the idea of taking a male superhero and having fun with it and someone using the c-word [campy] on it caused people to be very nasty. And that kind of nastiness was acceptable on those terms. And I think that’s the reason some people were particularly annoyed. They didn’t like seeing that tone applied to their heterosexual male icon.
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  (#10) Armie Hammer

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  2013's The Lone Ranger, while not an entirely terrible film as its reception makes clear, is mostly remembered for losing Walt Disney Studios a lot of money and for the controversy around casting Johnny Depp in a Native American role. Also notable was the decision to cast a then-little-known Armie Hammer as the lead. Though the film proved a controversial failure, Hammer doesn't have any regrets.

  The Lone Ranger enhanced Hammer's profile, leading to roles in pictures like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Birth of a Nation, which further solidified his rising clout. When critics came out against the Disney flop, Hammer struck out at them, claiming the media was "gunning for our movie" and "they decided to slit the jugular of our movie."

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