17 Celebs Who Did Movie Roles They Hated For (Lots Of) Money
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There’s no business like show business, but despite the perks of playing interesting and meaty roles, sometimes acting can come down to just business.
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Whether it’s an impossibly big paycheck, a desperate need for an influx of cash, or a potential lawsuit that would crater your bank account into the stone age, some stars had to accept roles in projects they otherwise would never even consider for the almighty dollar.
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As such, I’ve assembled 17 unique but sadly similar cases of times high-profile actors accepted a part with only money on their mind.
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1.Channing Tatum, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
“I fucking hate the movie,” Tatum spoke of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra on The Howard Stern Show, but having been signed to a three-picture contract off of Coach Carter, he was contractually obligated to do the film and accepted the fact that the film was nothing more than a Hollywood-sized payday. As a result of his miserable experience in the film, he capped off his contract and collected big for a glorified cameo in the film’s sequel, Retaliation, in which he’s killed off in the first act and ensured he'd never have to do another G.I. Joe film thereafter.
2.Michael Caine, Jaws: The Revenge
Michael Caine wasn’t exactly jumping for joy when he was offered a substantial part in the fourth, most critically reviled Jaws film, the production of which caused him to miss out on collecting an Academy Award. However, Caine would fondly recall the production experience as a “great holiday,” and has been quoted on ITV's The Jonathan Ross Show as stating, “Somebody said, 'Have you ever seen Jaws 4?' I said, 'No. But I've seen the house it bought for my mum. It's fantastic!”
3.Roy Scheider, Jaws 2
Speaking of Jaws sequels, Roy Scheider was not keen on returning for Jaws 2 (according to biographer Diane Kachmar), given the notorious complications on the first film's set, but after backing out of starring in The Deer Hunter only two weeks before production was to start, Universal decided to offer him quadruple his salary from the previous film (to a reported $500,000) and threaten him with a lawsuit for failure to fulfill his contractual obligations to the studio. Scheider would ultimately regret the decision, as even with the increased pay, Jaws 2 would have an even more tumultuous production than its predecessor, with director John D. Hancock being fired after a month of filming and Scheider often butting heads with Hancock's replacement, Jeannot Szwarc.
4.Mike Myers, The Cat in the Hat
In 2002, Mike Myers was on the hook for an unmade production called Dieter's Day, a film adaptation of a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch that cost Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment nearly $4 million in production costs. After being threatened with a $30 million lawsuit for the film's cancelation, Myers agreed to star in The Cat in the Hat for the aforementioned distributor and production company. Though Myers would walk away with a sizeable paycheck and a lawsuit avoided, the film was an unmitigated disaster, from Myers' allegedly difficult on-set behavior to production woes from first-time director, Bo Welch, to the critical lambasting of the film, which even extended to costar Alec Baldwin and Dr. Seuss' widow, Audrey Geisel (who swore off any further live-action Seuss productions).
5.Laurence Olivier, Inchon
Financed by Sun Myung Moon, a famed conservative religious leader in Korea, Inchon was a critical and commercial failure, despite the legendary Laurence Olivier’s appearance as General Douglas MacArthur. As for why Olivier accepted the part, his answer: “Money, dear boy.” Nearing the end of his life, Olivier was paid $1 million for the role, including $250,000 upon signing his contract, and received a stipend of $2,500 for expenses every week for all six weeks of the production. Shockingly, Olivier’s outstanding payday wasn’t all he received, as he later sued the production company for an extra million dollars for “unpaid overtime.”
6.Marlon Brando, Superman: The Movie
By 1978, Marlon Brando’s reputation preceded him in Hollywood, despite a fierce re-launch into stardom following his Academy Award-winning turn in The Godfather. Knowing virtually nothing about Superman, Brando signed onto the film adaptation of the comic character’s adventures for a salary of $3.7 million as well as nearly 12% of the box office gross profits, which totaled to an additional $20 million. Even with the payday, Brando cared so little about the role that he attempted to convince the producers that the character be recontextualized as a green suitcase or even a floating bagel so that he’d only have to offer a vocal performance.
7.Harrison Ford, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Expendables III
One of the most endearing qualities about Harrison Ford is that he truly does not give a shit about playing nice, offering pure honesty as to his work as of late. Case-in-point: Ford's grand return to the Star Wars franchise after more than 30 years, an occasion for which he has no nostalgic whimsy, telling Jimmy Fallon, "No, I got paid." The same can be said about Ford's part in The Expendables III, accepting a reported $6.9 million dollar paycheck for mere days of work, which was more than double the check that Bruce Willis had rejected to appear in the same capacity.
8.Edward Norton, The Italian Job
If you thought that Edward Norton was a little disinterested as he sleepwalked through his mustachioed, villainous turn in The Italian Job in 2003, chances are you were picking up what he was putting down. After signing a three-picture deal with Paramount with his star-making role in Primal Fear, the actor chose to accept a part in Fight Club, a Fox production, which gave Paramount the leverage to force Norton to costar in The Italian Job, lest he be hit with a massive, bank-breaking lawsuit. Though Norton did his duty and was commended for his professionalism on-set, the actor refused to promote the film, stating in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, "My contract with Paramount explicitly forbids me from discussing the film or the nature of my employment without their permission."
9.Dustin Hoffman, Little Fockers
Do you remember Little Fockers? Does anyone, really? I’m sure Dustin Hoffman’s accountant does, as the actor collected almost the same payday for his costarring role in Meet the Fockers for four small scenes shot after principal photography had already wrapped, having been initially written out of the film altogether after a salary dispute early into the film’s famously troubled production.
10.Whoopi Goldberg, Theodore Rex
A much-maligned direct-to-video film with an approval rating of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and a budget of over $33 million, Whoopi Goldberg only agreed to do this stinker of a film after verbally agreeing to do the film years prior; upon attempting to back out of the movie, producer Richard Gilbert Abramson slapped her with a $20 million lawsuit. Eventually, Goldberg agreed to do the film for a reported $7 million payday, far more than what she initially was offered, but still cites Theodore Rex as the only film she has regretted making.
11.David Cross, Alvin and The Chipmunks
A fixture of the independent and alternative comedy scene for his entire career, David Cross has been nothing but forthright about his experience playing the villain in the Alvin and The Chipmunks film. Though he’s not minced words about the unfulfilling and sometimes even terrible times he had making the Chipmunks trilogy, Cross, who hadn’t worked in months prior, has openly admitted that the first film “earned [him] more money than all of [his] other projects combined” and the paycheck from Chipwrecked helped him “put a down payment on a summer home.”
12.Alec Guinness, Star Wars: A New Hope
Alec Guinness had an esteemed career even before he stepped on set for Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope, seeing the piece's space jargon and prototypical narrative as below his level of talent, privately admitting to friends that he believed the film was "fairy tale rubbish." He accepted the part for far more than his usual rate (a reported $762,000, adjusted for inflation), and after his profit participation totaled $7 million (adjusted to $33 million today) on the first film, he reluctantly agreed to return for an even smaller role in The Empire Strikes Back.
13.Ice-T, Tank Girl
Ice-T transitioned from being a rock star and rapper to an actor with his role in New Jack City, which he felt was important for his career despite a small-scale payday. However, for his subsequent role in Tank Girl as a half-man, half-kangaroo, the actor recalled to Howard Stern his incredulous reaction to being pitched the part, but learning that the part came with a $1 million paycheck sent him "hopping around the room."
14.Richard Dreyfuss, Poseidon and Piranha 3D
After a long and versatile career in the film business, Richard Dreyfuss had largely retired by the early 2000s, though he soon changed his mind after receiving an offer to costar in Poseidon, describing the paycheck as "winning the lottery" and telling interviewers "I would have done it even if [the script] wasn't [great]. For the money they offered me, who could turn that down." The actor would later offer the same blunt honesty when describing his villainous role in Red as well as Jaws homage cameo in Piranha 3D, telling Vulture "I worked for two days in the middle of the desert, got my check, and then I left."
15.Emily Blunt, Gulliver’s Travels
After her role in The Devil Wears Prada put her on the map, Emily Blunt was ultimately indebted to 20th Century Fox for two additional movies, one of which ended up being Gulliver's Travels, with the studio forcing her into the role in light of her picky nature in regards to her roles. Even if the film garnered her a major payday and ultimately provided her with a pleasant on-set experience, her contractual obligation to Gulliver's Travels ended up costing her an offer to play Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow) in Iron Man II, a fact that still irks her during press rounds to this day.
16.Eddie Murphy, Best Defense
By 1984, Eddie Murphy was quickly becoming one of the biggest stars in the world, and his star power was something the producers of the Dudley Moore film, Best Defense, wanted. Though Murphy had previously turned the film down, Murphy later admitted that Paramount's $1 million offer for only two weeks of shooting was undeniable (even making light of the payday in his Saturday Night Live monologue, which you can watch in the Dec. 15, 1984 episode on Peacock), though his character is ultimately unconnected to the rest of the film and contributed to the film's status as a complete chop job.
17.Nicolas Cage, Various Roles
As refreshing as it has been to see Nicolas Cage pop up in Hollywood productions again in the last couple of years, the legendary actor's road to redemption hasn't been an easy one, having told Deadline earlier this year that he had to accept roles in "crummy" movies to pay back failed real estate investments, even if he's insistent that he "never phoned it in." Combined with the actor's public struggles with the IRS, Cage never names which films he did strictly for the money (though you can probably guess among his gallery of direct-to-video work), but still goes out of his way to laud the films during this time for which he is proud, including Joe, Pig, and Mandy.
