The $100m flop Harrison Ford saw coming from a mile away: “I knew they wouldn’t like that one”
Even though he remains one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars and iconic veterans, Harrison Ford isn’t the box office draw that he used to be. In fact, in the last quarter of a century, he’s played a leading role in precisely two movies that could be called unqualified smash hits.
Those aren’t the sort of returns befitting an actor who’s been part of the A-list since the late 1970s, and what makes it even more galling is that the only pair of hugely profitable pictures he’s made since he played against type to headline Robert Zemeckis’ What Lies Beneath in 2000 are Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where he reprised the most famous roles of his career.
Beyond that, it makes for pretty grim reading. Random Hearts? Bombed. Hollywood Homicide? Bombed. Firewall? Underperformed. Crossing Over? Bombed. Extraordinary Measures? Bombed. Cowboys & Aliens? Bombed. Ender’s Game? Bombed. Blade Runner 2049? Bombed. The Call of the Wild? Bombed. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny? Bombed. Captain America: Brave New World? Underperformed.
The Jackie Robinson biopic, 42, turned a modest profit, but apart from his Indy and Han Solo reprisals, Ford’s most lucrative release in the last 25 years is The Secret Life of Pets 2, which was a voice-only performance in a sequel that made over $400 million less in ticket sales than its predecessor, so he’s not exactly packing out those auditoriums like he used to.
Everyone involved in every film goes into production with the best of intentions, but sometimes, they realise pretty early on that it’s doomed to fail. Ford had the sneaking suspicion audiences wouldn’t be too keen to see him play a morally dubious Russian submarine commander in Kathryn Bigelow’s K-19: The Widowmaker, and he was proven entirely correct.
When he was asked if it was frustrating that the Cold War-era submarine story sank, he offered a typically honest assessment. “No,” Ford declared. “I knew they weren’t going to like that one. I always used to think, ‘I’ll do one for me and one for them.'” This was clearly one for him, and the movie’s failure inadvertently caused a ripple effect that reverberated around the industry.
At a cost of $100 million, The Widowmaker was the most expensive film ever directed by a woman, and the misogynistic side of the business inevitably reared its head when attempting to explain why it fell drastically short of expectations. It would be the last time a solo female filmmaker helmed a nine-figure live-action production until Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman was released 15 years later, and the top-billed name in the cast wasn’t surprised in the slightest that it sank.
Clearly, though, a consistent string of commercial duds has done nothing to dent Ford’s enduring star power, leaving him as one of the rare actors who can suffer through such a barren spell at the box office with so few bright spots and remain as in-demand as ever. Still, it would be nice if he lent his talents to more flicks that didn’t fail.
