Over the past few decades, comic book, superhero and action franchises have served as a launching point for many stars. But despite their popularity, there have been plenty of actors who, in the years after finishing out their roles, have either opened up about their negative experiences on these big-budget films or the franchise fatigue and burnout that comes with many years of commitment to one role.
Some have been more blunt than others in interviews, with actors like Dakota Johnson and Michael Fassbender being open about the underwhelming reception to their films. A few just needed a break from the extensive stunts and training these blockbusters often require. Or if you’re Daniel Craig, sometimes it’s as simple as saying “I don’t care” about the future of the series.
Read below for a list of actors who have spoken out about the big franchise films they were once a part of — some with nicer words than others.
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Dakota Johnson, “Madame Web”
Image Credit: ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection “Madame Web” was a notorious comic book movie flop, and its star, Dakota Johnson, seemed to know it too during her promotional tour. Following the film’s negative reviews, including its 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, she told Bustle that “unfortunately, I’m not surprised that this has gone down the way it has. … You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms. My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullshit. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those.”
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Dave Bautista, “Guardians of the Galaxy”
Image Credit: ©Walt Disney Co./courtesy Everett / Everett Collection After the “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy ended with the third installment in 2023, Dave Bautista, who played Drax, was ready to step away after nearly 10 years in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He told GQ magazine that while he’s grateful for Drax, “it wasn’t all pleasant. It was hard playing that role. The makeup process was beating me down. And I just don’t know if I want Drax to be my legacy — it’s a silly performance, and I want to do more dramatic stuff.” Even back in 2021, he told Collider that “I really wished they would have invested more in Drax, personally. … I think Drax has a really interesting backstory, which they dropped the ball on.”
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Daniel Craig, “Spectre” and “No Time to Die”
Image Credit: Nicola Dove Ahead of the release of “Spectre” in 2015, Daniel Craig told Time Out magazine that if offered another James Bond film, he’d rather “slash [his] wrists,” describing how he would only take on another Bond movie “for the money.” He also wasn’t shy about citing the six months of working out and preparation the film took. Since his final Bond outing in “No Time To Die,” though, his words have turned kinder, describing how he “had an incredibly fortunate 17 years” making the five Bond films. “I left it where I wanted it to be. And I was given the chance to do that with the last movie,” he told BBC in 2022.
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Adam Driver, “Star Wars”
Image Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd. While Daisy Ridley will be returning to the “Star Wars” franchise following 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker,” the same can’t be said for Adam Driver, who made the giant jump from the world of “Girls” and “Inside Llewyn Davis” to playing the brand new “Star Wars” franchise’s masked villain, Kylo Ren. “‘Star Wars’ was way more exhausting for me,” Driver said on an episode of the “SmartLess” podcast. “I made it more exhausting than it should have been. I hadn’t quite figured out the momentum of a set that was that big before. All the things I had worked on were pretty small and moved pretty fast.”
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Harrison Ford, “Star Wars”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Disney Harrison Ford has always had hilarious responses during press tours for his starring franchise roles in “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones,” never quite giving in to fan expectations. He infamously joked during an interview with Collider that “I don’t care” when asked whether Han or Greedo shot first. As many “Star Wars” fans know, Ford infamously wanted Han Solo to die in “Return of the Jedi” but did end up returning to give the iconic character a send-off in 2015’s “The Force Awakens.”
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Oscar Isaac, “Star Wars“
Image Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd. Throughout the press tour for the new “Star Wars” trilogy, Oscar Issac made it clear that he gravitates more toward smaller films. In 2020, he joked that he would only return to “Star Wars” if he needed “another house or something.” At the 2021 Venice Film Festival, he said that “I’ve been in green-screen space land for quite a few years and I was desperate to do a character study.” However, he has seemingly warmed up to the possibility of a return for Poe Dameron, telling SiriusXM that he is “open to anything” with a great story and director. Isaac did star in “Moon Knight” for Marvel; the series was released on Disney+ in 2022.
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Michael Fassbender, “Assassin’s Creed”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox “Assassin’s Creed” was one of the many video game franchises to fail to translate to box office or critical success. Star and producer Michael Fassbender told Movie’n’co that the outcome of the project “wasn’t ideal. I think we missed an opportunity there a little bit. So we’ll wait and see what Ubisoft comes up with.” When asked about what he would do given a redo opportunity, he candidly explained that “I would make it more entertaining, that’s really the main note.”
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Jamie Dornan, “Fifty Shades of Grey”
While the “Fifty Shades of Grey” movies launched Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson into the spotlight, that doesn’t mean they always wanted the aftermath of the attention. Following the acclaim he received for the series “The Fall,” Dornan told BBC Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs” that his family had to hide out in the “Fifty Shades of Grey” star’s house after the backlash that came with the first movie in 2015. Dornan said on an episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in 2023 that he knew the movies were going to be panned, with the reality being that it would “make a ton of money and the fans would love and the critics would despise it.”
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Sally Field, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”
Image Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images It wasn’t too long after the disappointing release of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” stopped the Andrew Garfield-led universe that Oscar-winner Sally Field, who played the beloved Aunt May, was honest about her disinterest in the universe. Field told Howard Stern that “it’s not my kind of movie. It’s really hard to find a three-dimensional character in it, and you work it as much as you can, but you can’t put 10 pounds of s— in a five-pound bag.”
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Shia LaBeouf, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”
Image Credit: ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection Back in 2016, Shia LaBeouf reflected on his time working with director Steven Spielberg, who directed him on “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and produced “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” LaBeouf said that “you get here, and you realize you’re not meeting the Spielberg you dream of. You’re meeting a different Spielberg, who is in a different stage in his career. He’s less a direction than he is a fucking company.” He candidly went on to explain that “I don’t like the movies that I made with Spielberg,” describing the big studio sets as too mechanical and controlled.
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Robert Pattinson, “Twilight”
Like Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson managed to revitalize his career with independent films after starring in the “Twilight” films. But throughout press tours over the years, Pattinson has shared his honest opinions about the franchise, like in 2019 when he described how “even when I was promoting it, I was pretty open about how strange I thought it was.” In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, he explained how he felt that “a lot of the stuff in the ‘Twilight’ world doesn’t make any sense,” questioning why the hundred-year-old vampires were still in high school.
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Megan Fox, “Transformers”
Image Credit: Willi Schneider/REX Shutterstock The “Transformers” franchise helped launch Megan Fox’s career, but she ended up leaving the series after the second film. In one 2009 interview that went viral, Fox compared her director, Michael Bay, to Adolf Hitler, describing how he wanted “to create this insane, infamous madman reputation.”
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Eddie Murphy, “Beverly Hill Cops III”
Image Credit: Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection After playing Axel Foley in the original “Beverly Hills Cop” trilogy, Eddie Murphy did not hold back words about the quality of his third outing, “Beverly Hills Cop III,” which was critically tarnished. Ahead of the release of the most recent “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” Murphy told Screen Rant that “the reason ‘Beverly Hills Cop III’ was soft was because Taggart’s not in the movie, and the villain isn’t villainous enough, and Alex didn’t have any skin in the game.” Back in 1989, Murphy said that “the only reason to do a ‘Cop III’ is to beat the bank.”
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George Clooney, “Batman & Robin”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros/Everett Collection “Batman & Robin” is largely considered by comic book fans to be one of the worst superhero films ever. George Clooney has long joked that his performance as Batman helped ruin the movie. In a 2020 interview with GQ, Clooney explained how “when I say ‘Batman and Robin’ is a terrible film, I always go, ‘I was terrible in it.’ Because I was, number one. But also because then it allows you the ability to say, ‘Having said I sucked in it, I can also say that none of these other elements worked either.’ You know? Lines like ‘Freeze, Freeze!’”
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Val Kilmer, “Batman Forever”
Image Credit: Getty Images In his autobiographical documentary ‘Val,” Val Kilmer was candid about his experience working on “Batman Forever” as the titular caped hero. “Whatever boyhood excitement I had was crushed by the reality of the Batsuit. Yes, every boy wants to be Batman. They actually want to be him. … Not necessarily play him in a movie.” He described how the batsuit made him feel isolated and restricted: “I couldn’t hear anything and after a while people stopped talking to me.”
