“We do not talk about that film”: the one movie Emily Blunt wants to delete from history
For the most part, Emily Blunt has shown good instincts when it comes to choosing roles, and they seem to be getting sharper with time, not that she’s immune to the occasional misstep.
Since starring in 2012’s Arthur Newman, the awful dramedy that’s comfortably the worst thing she’s ever been in, the Academy Award nominee has developed an increasingly powerful nose for a strong script and a worthwhile character, to the point where the hits now dramatically outweigh the misses.
Nobody’s perfect, though, which goes a long way to explaining Netflix’s turgid Pain Hustlers, and she can’t have been thinking of anything other than the paycheque when she agreed to ham it up in the risible Huntsman: Winter’s War, but everything else over the last dozen years or so has generally been solid.
It’s a lot easier to land better roles when you’re a bigger name, such is the way that Hollywood has always worked, so it’s unlikely that Blunt will ever be forced into a movie against her will again. Funnily enough, the last time that happened, she ended up with the one movie she’d rather people run away from than sit down to watch.
As a result of the contract she’d signed with the studio for her breakthrough role in The Devil Wears Prada, 20th Century Fox exercised its option and pushed her into Jack Black’s Gulliver’s Travels, a movie she didn’t want to make in the first place, and one that cost her an absolute fortune in the long run.
Having been forced into the Razzie-nominated turd, scheduling conflicts ruled her out of playing Natasha Romanoff in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2, with Scarlett Johansson stepping into the role, suiting up as the superhero in another seven comic book blockbusters, and earning upwards of $60 million from her Marvel tenure.
Naturally, when her Fall Guy co-star Ryan Gosling eagerly shared that Gulliver’s Travels was his favourite of Blunt’s films, she didn’t take it too well. “We do not talk about that film,” she admonished. When he insisted that she was actually great in it, which she wasn’t, she reiterated her point: “Ryan, we do not discuss that film.”
Then, when he suggested that everyone should rewatch it, Blunt continued to dig her heels in. “Please, don’t,” she pleaded, before insisting that if anyone stumbles across Gulliver’s Travels in any way, shape, or form, they should turn the other way and get as far away from it as possible. “Walk, don’t run,” as she put it.
Thanks to the aforementioned Arthur Newman, it’s not the absolute nadir of Blunt’s big-screen career, but it’s pretty close. That’s the one she wants everyone to forget, so do her and yourself a favour and make sure you never watch Gulliver’s Travels, because it really is shite.
