Today, superhero movies have reached such a high level of prestige that high-quality actors and actresses have signed on to appear in the movies. Everyone from esteemed actors like Robert Redford and Jeremy Irons to award-winning stars like Viola Davis and Michael Douglas has signed on to play characters in movies that used to be ridiculed as kid’s stuff. With movies like all three of The Avengers offerings breaking the billion dollar mark worldwide, these are movies that can make and break a career for many actors. It also allowed an actor like Robert Downey Jr. to relaunch his career and a man like Chris Evans to be able to make his own passion projects on the side.
However, not everyone who has appeared in a Marvel or DC Comics movie has enjoyed playing a role in their sandboxes. When it comes to DC movies, it is even worse because there has yet to be a success story as big as the Marvel Cinematic Universe since The Dark Knight was considered for an Academy Award. As a result, there are many missteps and actors who regretted signing on the dotted line for a chance to save or destroy the world.
Here are the 10 Actors Who Regretted Being In DC Movies (And 10 Who Adored Them).
REGRETTED: TOMMY LEE JONES
Tommy Lee Jones has built up a reputation for being perpetually cranky and is reportedly quite a handful on many movie sets. On the problematic Batman Forever, Jones played Two-Face and went incredibly over-the-top in his performance as the former Gotham City district attorney. However, nothing in this movie portrayed his other side and he was a lunatic from start to finish. Jones was never happy on the set either.
According to reports, Jones trembled when he told Jim Carrey how much he despised him as they worked together.
Carrey told the story and said that Jones hated him being the bigger star and hated his “buffoonery.” He also said that Jones was never very happy making the movie because playing Two-Face in a Batman movie wasn’t his “style.”
REGRETTED: SEAN CONNERY
In what has to be a huge disappointment for his fans, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was the last movie that Sean Connery ever made. The man who was amazing in everything from James Bond movies to The Untouchables and The Hunt for Red October decided after this DC Comics-based movie that Hollywood had passed him by.
Connery called working on this comic book adaptation a “nightmare” and said that the entire experience is what led to his retirement. Connery said after making the movie, he realized he was “fed up with dealing with idiots” and he noted on the very first day of shooting that director Stephen Norrington was “insane.” Not even a new Indiana Jones movie could lure Connery back to the set after his experience on this movie.
ADOREDED: BEN AFFLECK
The rumors persist that Ben Affleck might be finished playing Batman in the DCEU, but there is a chance that he stays on board, but with the DC Comics movies going in two directions – meaning two different Jokers and two different Batmans. That is because Affleck says that he still loves playing the Caped Crusader.
After his first experience in a superhero movie went south with the theatrical version of Daredevil being a critical flop, Affleck finally got the role of a lifetime with Batman.
Even with Affleck pulling out of directing The Batman, he still sounds like he wants to stick with it. Just last year, Affleck claimed that playing Batman was a “boyhood dream come true” for the actor. Whether that continues or not is still to be determined.
REGRETTED: GEORGE CLOONEY
If any actor has been extremely vocal about hating his experience in making a comic book movie, George Clooney is at the head of the class. Clooney replaced Val Kilmer for the fourth Batman movie in the first series of films, but he hated everything about Batman & Robin. Even 16 years after making the movie that ended the Batman franchise, Clooney will still talk about how terrible the movie that he appeared in was.
Clooney said that he keeps a photo of himself as Batman in his office to remind him of how bad things can be when making a decision based solely for commercial reasons. Clooney said that he was super excited when he got the role but then said that he was “really bad in it” and that it was a hard movie for anyone to be good in.
REGRETTED: HALLE BERRY
In 2002, Halle Berry won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the first African-American woman to ever achieve that honor. She was on top of the world and it seemed like any role she desired was at her fingertips.
Two years later, she signed on to her second superhero movie in Catwoman and followed up her Oscar win with a Razzie Award for Worst Actress.
After receiving some praise for her role of Storm in the X-Men movies, she seemed to take the critical disdain in style and became the first actress to accept the Razzie in person at the ceremony. While accepting the award, she actually thanked Warner Bros. for the honor of casting her in “this … god-awful movie.”
ADOREDED: CHRISTOPHER REEVE
In 1979, an unknown aspiring actor named Christopher Reeve won the role of a lifetime when he was cast to play Superman. For at least two movies, Reeve enjoyed his role as the Man of Steel and used it to try to make a difference in the world. Sadly, things soured with Superman III where he was upstaged by comedian Richard Pryor.
It got even worse with Superman IV, where Reeve decided that he was finished and quit playing Superman for good. Despite that, Reeve loved playing Superman and loved what the character represented. Even in Superman IV, Reeve had a line he loved where he said he wished people could see him like he sees the world and that they should take care of it better. Reeve said that he believed Superman represented being a friend and everyone needed that kind of friend.
REGRETTED: RYAN REYNOLDS
Ryan Reynolds takes great pride in making fun of Green Lantern every chance that he gets. It wasn’t his first attempt at a comic book movie (that would be Blade: Trinity) and it wasn’t his last (he appeared in R.I.P.D. before landing the Deadpool role). However, it was possibly the most embarrassing due to the critical and box office bomb that it resulted in.
As a matter of fact, Reynolds poked fun at it during the end credits of Deadpool 2 when he traveled back in time to save the world from the movie existing at all.
Reynolds has even admitted that he has never watched more than a rough cut of the movie. While Reynolds did meet his wife while making the film, that was the only high point because he said no one ever figured out what the movie was supposed to be.
REGRETTED: JOSH BROLIN
Not many actors have appeared in as many comic book movies as Josh Brolin. This year alone, he starred as Cable in Deadpool 2 and as Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. Add in past roles in movies like Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and Men in Black 2, and Brolin has been in just about every type of comic book movie there is. However, it was his first attempt that he hates the most – the role of DC Comics western antihero Jonah Hex.
When asked about Jonah Hex, he admitted that he “hated it.” Brolin said that the entire process of making it was better than what they ended up putting up on the screen in the final cut. He said that they ended up re-shooting 66 pages of the script in 12 days and the movie that resulted was not what he signed on to make.
ADOREDED: GARY OLDMAN
Gary Oldman is one of those respected, award-winning actors who had no problem with signing on for a comic book adaptation. The fact that he scored a role in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy just makes it even better. Oldman is a two-time Oscar nominee, winning his first statue this year for Darkest Hour. However, for three movies, he was Commissioner Gordon in the Batman universe.
When asked about the movies, Oldman said that he loved working with Nolan on Batman Begins and was more than happy to reprise his role in The Dark Knight.
He loved being in a comic book movie so much that he is already ready for more. When asked about it, Oldman said that he wants to be in a Marvel movie next because it is something his son wants to see.
REGRETTED: MATTHEW GOODE
There was a lot to like about Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen. It was almost as close to a precise replica of a comic book as someone can make. Not only did it remain completely faithful to the comic book, but it fixed the most problematic area by eliminating the giant squid at the end. However, while there were brilliant choices for some of the cast (Jackie Earl Haley as Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Comedian), most fans hated the casting of Matthew Goode as Ozymandias.
For his part, Goode said that he understands the fans hatred and agrees with them. Goode said that he was never convinced that he was the right person to play the character, and as a fan of literature, he feels the same when someone is miscast – as he was.
REGRETTED: SHAQUILLE O’NEAL
While Shaquille O’Neal was one of the most dominating basketball stars in the world, he decided to try his hand at acting as well. In the ’90s, Tim Burton and Kevin Smith were trying to make a movie based on the classic DC Comics story The Death of Superman. That movie was supposed to get made and lead to spinoffs based on the Reign of the Superman heroes. The Smith and Burton movie never got made, but DC Comics made Steel anyway. In the comics, John Henry Irons was a brilliant weapons engineer.
In the movie Steel, Shaq was Irons. Not only that, but it was Shaq in what was considered one of the worst costumes ever made.
O’Neal ended up winning a Razzie for Worst Actor. Instead of launching his movie career, Shaq wasn’t in another movie for four years and never headlined another film again.
ADOREDED: MARGOT ROBBIE
Margot Robbie seemed to come from out of nowhere. After a number of television roles, she had her breakout in The Wolf of Wall Street, where she turned a lot of heads. She followed that up three years later with the role of Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. Even after picking up her first Oscar nomination two years later for I, Tonya, she still seems ready to return to the world of the DCEU.
Harley Quinn will tell anyone who will listen that she is ready to return to Harley Quinn in both Suicide Squad 2 and the Birds of Prey movie. Robbie explained that she loves the role of Harley, who she refers to as insane and one of the most interesting roles she was ever given.
REGRETTED: MARLON BRANDO
Most people agree that by the time that Marlon Brando made Superman, he was finished caring about his Hollywood career. There was little after The Godfather that seemed to make Brando happy and when he made Superman, he refused to even learn his lines and forced someone to stand and hold a posterboard with his lines on it that he simply just read for the cameras.
In an interview, Christopher Reeve said that Brando didn’t even care about the movie or anyone involved with it.
He even referred to it as “hostility” on Brando’s part, saying that the esteemed actor “took the $2 million and ran.” Brando even stonewalled the franchise and would not allow footage already shot of him to appear in Superman II, something that remained withheld until after his passing.
REGRETTED: RICHARD PRYOR
There are people who appear in comic book movies because it is a dream come true, such as Ben Affleck as Batman. Then, there are others who take the roles because of what they mean, such as Christoper Reeve with Superman. Finally, there are those people who just take the role because it means that they will be paid a lot of money, which is the only reason Richard Pryor took on the role as the bad guy in Superman III.
That is unfortunate since Pryor was a major star at the time and received more than Reeve, who was the heart and soul of the entire franchise. Pryor claimed, at the time, that he received the script and said that he would star in the movie for $5 million. However, in his autobiography, he said that he really didn’t like the script at all but wanted the money.
ADORED: GAL GADOT
After the Brett Ratner scandal, there was a moment where it seemed like Gal Gadot might step away from her role as Wonder Woman. Thankfully, that did not happen. Gadot is the true heart of the entire DCEU franchise and is one of the brightest spots about any of the movies that Warner Bros. has made for DC since the Dark Knight Trilogy ended.
Gadot has said that she loves playing the character of Wonder Woman, something that likely has a lot to do with her director Patty Jenkins work on the movie.
According to Gadot, she loves playing Wonder Woman because she is “not perfect” but is an open character that has no problem showing her own flaws.
REGRETTED: MICHAEL SHANNON
Michael Shannon is another one of those Academy Award-nominated actors who came on board to make a superhero movie. The man who has picked up two nominations – one for Nocturnal Animals and one for Revolutionary Road – seemed to be one of those men making the comic book movies for the money, without caring about the project at all.
When asked about his role as General Zod in Man of Steel, Shannon had nothing nice to say about it. As a matter of fact, when asked about the battle between Superman and Batman in the next movie in the series, he said he was “profoundly unconcerned with the outcome of that fight.” He also joked that Superman would probably become a serial criminal, mocking the one part of Man of Steel that divided fans the most.
REGRETTED: JARED LETO
Jared Leto is a hard person to figure out. When DC Comics and Warner Bros. cast him to play Joker in Suicide Squad, he went method in his preparations. He angered many members of the cast with his actions on the set and behind-the-scenes, but it turns out that his cast members were not the only people not happy when it came to making Suicide Squad.
Leto said that he was very unhappy with the Suidie Squad movie because they shot a lot of scenes that he thought was great. However, when the movie was released, Leto said that he had no idea where his character went in the second half of the movie.
When asked if he was disappointed that so much was cut, he asked if there were any of his scenes “that didn’t get cut.” He was mad, but not mad enough not to sign back on for more.
ADORED: JASON MOMOA
While Gal Gadot might be the brightest light and the heart and soul of the DCEU as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa gave the entire DCEU a huge boost with his portrayal of Aquaman in Justice League. While not all critics loved the movie, Aquaman was a huge highlight and a lot of that had to do with Momoa’s portrayal of the character. He seemed to be having more fun than anyone in the entire cast.
When asked about the critical reaction to the movie, Momoa said that he stays away from what other people say. However, for himself, he said that he saw Justice League twice and loved it, even more the second time. He even said he had plans to watch it again, and this December he will return to the role one more time.
ADORED: HENRY CAVILL
It came as a shock this year when reports indicated that Henry Cavill was leaving the role of Superman. The entire rumors started when Cavill was in contract negotiations to have a cameo in the Shazam movie and it fell through. After that, the word broke that he was finished with the DCEU and was moving on. However, both Warner Bros. and Cavill’s team has said that is not the case at this time. That is good because earlier this year, Cavill said that he loves playing Superman in the DCEU.
In an interview, he said that he still wants to make a Man of Steel 2 and that he wants it to be a direct sequel to that first movie.
As a matter of fact, Cavill said there is a lot concerning Superman’s character that he still wants to tell the story of before he leaves the franchise.
REGRETTED: CHRISTIAN BALE
When people talk about the best comic book movies of all-time, the one that usually sits at the very top of most lists is The Dark Knight. Those movies, with Christopher Nolan directing and Christian Bale as Batman, are considered the pinnacle of comic book adaptations. However, while fans love those movies above almost all others, the man who played Batman is not as enthusiastic about them.
Bale said that he has mixed emotions because he was able to make dream projects thanks to the Dark Knight movies. However, he didn’t feel that he did as good a job as many fans credit him with. In an interview, Bale said that he didn’t manage what he had hoped in three movies and that he “didn’t quite nail” the role of Batman.
Are there any other actors who regretted or adored their DC roles? Let us know in the comments!
