How two box office bombs in 10 weeks derailed Hollywood’s next big thing: “It hurt, obviously”
In Hollywood, as in life, there is no such thing as a sure thing. You might think that a young actor is poised to become the next Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts, only to have it all come crashing down with one box office bomb. Do you remember the name Brandon Routh? What about Julia Ormond? Most of the tabloids are focused on unlikely success stories and the spectacular downfalls of A-list celebrities, not the almost-weres.
When considering the many up-and-comers who never quite reached the top, no one stands out quite as sheepishly as Taylor Kitsch. Between 2006 and 2011, he was one of the most recognisable faces on television, playing the troubled rebel with the heart of gold in the American football television series Friday Night Lights. As Tim Riggins, he had the combination of danger and vulnerability that makes the perfect teen heartthrob, and when the series concluded, it was practically a given that he would take Hollywood by storm.
There was plenty of evidence to back it up, too. In 2009, he was cast as the title character in Disney’s John Carter. Based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs science fiction books, the story centres on a Civil War veteran who is transported to a fictional planet called Barsoom. Kitsch did everything right. He got abs, grew his hair out into vaguely mystical shoulder-length locks, and acted the role without a hint of embarrassment.
The film was meant to be Disney’s next big franchise along the lines of Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They were so confident that they poured $350million into it, practically guaranteeing that it would fail. In the end, they lost $200m when it flopped at the box office. Within a year, Disney purchased LucasFilm and, with it, the Star Wars franchise. If they couldn’t create their own franchise, they’d just buy their top competitor.
A couple of months later, Kitsch suffered another blow when the science fiction movie Battleship sank at the box office. It was yet another example of a studio overspending on a film that could have brought in a decent profit. Off of a budget of $209million, the film raked in over $300m, but with marketing and other expenses, the studio ended up losing about $150m.
With two bank-breaking flops with his face on them in the span of just ten weeks, Kitsch was sent into professional exile. He hasn’t starred in any major Hollywood releases since, taking supporting roles in films like Lone Survivor, American Assassin, and Only The Brave. He’s also returned to television, starring in the series Waco, Painkiller, and American Primeval.
Instead, in a plot twist worthy of Hollywood itself, the only star to emerge from Friday Night Lights was a small-town Texas boy named Jesse Plemons. He played the scrawny, bullied geek in the show who pines after Tim’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, and it’s safe to say that few people who were watching the series would have anticipated that he would go on to work with Martin Scorsese, Yorgos Lanthimos, and earn an Oscar nomination.
Still, Kitsch doesn’t harbour any bitterness about John Carter. In an interview with Screenrant in 2022, the actor said that he learned “an incredible amount” from the movie and has “no ill will whatsoever.” That said, he didn’t come away completely unscarred by it.
“It hurt, obviously, at the time,” he acknowledged, “But in retrospect, I wouldn’t change a thing, to be honest.”
