Frequently, when a film doesn’t perform well, the blame is cast on the actors, especially the lead. Whether due to a lackluster performance that generates negative reviews or an off-screen controversy that tarnishes their public image, actors often find themselves at the center of criticism for a movie’s poor showing. However, pinning the failure of a film solely on one individual can sometimes be unfair.

In the realm of “Star Wars,” the reception to new entries has varied. While “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019 left some fans wanting more from Rey and Kylo Ren’s story, 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” was praised for its depiction of the Death Star’s destruction. However, 2018’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” an origin tale for Han Solo, met with mixed reactions. Despite a stellar cast including Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, and Paul Bettany, it fell short financially. “Vanity Fair” even labeled it as the first “Star Wars” film to flop, as it grossed around $393 million globally against a $275 million budget, not accounting for marketing costs.

Charlie Hunnam, best known for his role as Jax in “Sons of Anarchy,” attempted to diversify his career following the series’ conclusion. He starred in “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,” an action film directed by Guy Ritchie that explored King Arthur’s origins while taking creative liberties with the legend. Despite the involvement of a renowned actor and director, the movie underwhelmed at the box office, earning $149 million against a $175 million budget.

Producer Kathleen Kennedy blamed this on doing a Han Solo film without the iconic Harrison Ford in the role, indirectly putting the blame on Alden Ehrenreich as the titular character. While she didn’t comment on his performance as a younger Han Solo, she recognized that fans probably weren’t ready to see someone else in the role, whether Ehrenreich or anyone else. “But even doing Solo as a TV show without Harrison Ford as Han Solo… It’s the same thinking. Maybe I should have recognized this before,” she told Vanity Fair. She added that, now, “it does seem so abundantly clear that we can’t do that.”

Charlie Hunnam will always be known as Jax in “Sons of Anarchy,” but after the series ended, he expanded his resume. He played the titular character in “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,” a Guy Ritchie action flick portraying the origin story of King Arthur. The film is rooted in the original legends, but certainly took some creative liberties. Despite having a well-known actor and director attached, it was a box office disappointment, bringing in $149 million against its reported $175 million budget.

Though no one mentioned her by name, audiences inferred that both Hunnam and Ritchie faulted Annabelle Wallis, who played Maggie, for the flop. “There was a piece of miscasting that ended up crippling the central story line. It’s actually not in the film anymore,” Hunnam said during a 2020 interview with Andy Cohen (via Entertainment Weekly). Reports before the film’s release claimed that Ritchie shared this sentiment, saying that he did not like her performance and cut her out of the film as much as he could. This lines up with critic reviews, which highlighted a poor narrative that doesn’t reflect the original story.

Many know Australian actor Chris Hemsworth as Thor, the God of Thunder, in the Avengers movies. The character appears across many of the films, fighting against Thanos in “Infinity War” and “Endgame” and having his own adventures in four solo projects. However, when Hemsworth wasn’t playing Thor, he ventured into thrillers, starring in 2015’s “Blackhat” as Nicholas Hathaway, a hacker helping the feds.

Audiences weren’t interested in the film, with it earning just $19.6 million at the box office against a $70 million budget. Reviews cited Hemsworth as the low point of “Blackhat,” with The Atlantic calling his performance “flat-out awful” and Entertainment Weekly calling him “all wrong as the lead.” While the actor should’ve been a draw for the movie, especially after the popularity of the Thor outings, his performance was instead blamed for “Blackhat’s” shortcomings.

It may seem harsh, but Hemsworth agreed with the critics. “I didn’t enjoy what I did in the film,” Hemsworth told Variety in 2019 while promoting “Endgame.” “It just felt flat, and it was also an attempt to do what I thought people might have wanted to see. But I don’t think I’m good in that space.”

Eddie Murphy is a funny guy, hands down. Movies like “Coming to America” and “Dr. Dolittle” cemented him as a leading man, while projects like “Dreamgirls” showcased his emotional depth. However, not every film can be a hit, and that’s exactly what happened with the 2002 comedy “The Adventures of Pluto Nash.” One of the biggest box office bombs of the 21st century, it earned just $7 million against a $100 million budget, with audiences and critics agreeing that it wasn’t the actor’s best by a long shot, based on the Rotten Tomatoes scores of 20% and 6%, respectively.

The Washington Post called Murphy’s performance the “worst performance by a professional actor [they] have ever seen,” and the Rotten Tomatoes critic consensus describes the actor as being “on autopilot” for the project. In an interview with Complex in 2025, Murphy was quick to name it as one of his worst films, also including “Holy Man” on the list. Director Ron Underwood also spoke of Murphy’s performance in an interview with Slash Film, saying the movie just didn’t turn out how they had hoped. “I feel like Eddie gave a lot,” Underwood said. “But he didn’t… I mean, he wasn’t feeling that funny, I don’t think.”

“The Flash” should’ve been a great ending for the DC Extended Universe. It was a long-awaited solo project that Warner Bros. CEO and President David Zaslav said was “terrific,” but it stumbled on release, bringing in $271 million at the box office against a reported $200 million budget. Reviews leaned positive, with the Rotten Tomatoes critic score at 63% and the audience score at a higher 81%, so why did it bomb at the box office? 

The movie’s issues boiled down to its lead actor, Ezra Miller. At the time, Miller was facing various accusations of violence, starting in 2020 when a video was posted online of the actor appearing to choke someone before throwing them to the ground. In 2022 alone, a minor and her mother had a protection order placed against Miller, and he was charged with burglary, disorderly conduct, and harassment, among other incidents. With all of this going on, Miller did little press for the film, and it debuted to little fanfare.

Warner Bros. opted to stand behind it, choosing to release it in theaters rather than on its streaming platform, HBO Max. “The Flash” came after several other DCEU film failures and marked the end of that version of the universe before the official handoff to James Gunn, but the controversy surrounding lead Ezra Miller was the nail in the coffin at the box office.

There have been plenty of movie versions of Batman over the years, from Adam West’s portrayal to Will Arnett voicing a Lego version of the character. One who stands out for the wrong reasons is George Clooney’s Batman in 1997’s “Batman & Robin.” The movie didn’t do spectacularly at the box office, earning $238 million against a reported $125 million budget. That may seem great, but after marketing is added in, it was a box office disappointment and one of the worst-reviewed Batman films up to that point.

Reviews attributed that to Clooney’s performance. “George Clooney is the big zero of the film,” wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, while Variety wrote: “Clooney is unable to compensate onscreen for the lack of dimension on paper.” Variety did highlight that the actor “is unquestionably the most ideal Batman to date,” but that didn’t ultimately work in Clooney’s favor.

Audiences agreed with the assessment, with the Rotten Tomatoes score sitting at just 16% with more than 250,000 audience reviews. The actor has apologized for his performance, saying on “The Graham Norton Show” that he “always apologize[s] for ‘Batman & Robin’” and that he “thought [he] destroyed the franchise” for a while.

Disney continues to add live-action princess projects to their lineup. It came as no surprise that “Snow White” would receive the same live-action treatment, since other princesses like Cinderella and Belle had theirs. But “Snow White” failed to meet expectations at the box office, earning just $205 million with a reported $270 million budget. With that kind of performance, the studio likely lost around $115 million on Snow White.

There was initially backlash about Rachel Zegler’s casting, not because people felt she wasn’t up for the role, but because a select group believed she did not match the character’s description of having “skin as white as snow” because of her Colombian heritage. This came on the heels of similar criticism over Halle Bailey playing Ariel in 2023’s “The Little Mermaid.” The negative sentiment continued when the actress spoke of how they were modernizing the story and that parts of the original film, which came out in 1937, were dated.

Despite reviews highlighting Zegler as the best part of “Snow White,” audiences ultimately didn’t go see it in theaters. Producer Marc Platt’s son Jonah blamed Zegler and her political posts on social media for the lack of box office turnout, per The Hollywood Reporter, though Business Insider analysts noted that the poor reviews were likely the culprit.

“Ghost in the Shell” is an action thriller following Major Motoko Kusanagi, a woman with robot-like enhancements that give her better vision and speed. It’s meant to make her a perfect supersoldier, but it only makes it easier for her to discover who she really is. The movie didn’t do great at the box office, bringing in $170 million against a reported $110 million budget, not including marketing.

Upon Johansson’s casting in the lead role, concerns broke out that the character was being whitewashed, since the source material is a Japanese manga series. The actress’s character is a cybernetic human, which many (including Johansson) argue has no race because she blurs the line between human and android. The casting announcement spurred conversations about the film’s box office performance long before the release date, particularly that production company and distributor Paramount Pictures might be concerned that a non-white actress wouldn’t bring people to the box office.

That said, Paramount seemed to indirectly blame their own casting of Johansson for the box office performance. “We had hopes for better results domestically. I think the conversation regarding casting impacted the reviews,” Kyle Davies, domestic distribution chief for Paramount at the time, said to CBC News. In other words, the studio believed the whitewashing discussions caused people to decide against seeing the movie.

There were plenty of biopics released in 2025, but the one that bombed at the box office starred Sydney Sweeney. While the year ended well enough for the actress with “The Housemaid,” which was quickly greenlit for a sequel, that win came after a lackluster performance from “Christy.” The biopic follows Sweeney as Christy Salters, a professional boxer, watching her rise in the sport and her relationship with James V. Martin, her coach and ex-husband.

Despite praise for Sweeney’s performance and mixed reviews from critics, “Christy” made just under $2 million at the box office against a $15 million budget, making it a box office bomb. Actress Ruby Rose blamed Sweeney for the poor showing, writing that “Christy deserved better” on Threads. “None of ‘the people’ want to see someone who hates them, parading around pretending to be us,” Rose wrote. “You’re a cretin and you ruined the film.”

Rose’s comments came on the heels of the controversial American Eagle jeans ad Sweeney participated in earlier in the year. Many believed the commercial was promoting eugenics, which is popular rhetoric among white supremacists. The actress also previously addressed controversy over what looked like MAGA-style hats at a family birthday party she attended in 2022. All of this meant that “Christy” came out while Sweeney was already facing backlash, which didn’t encourage audiences to see the film.

Tom Cruise is at his best as an action star. He does most of his own stunts, and the “Mission: Impossible” franchise would be nothing without him. However, when he tried to help launch the new wave of the Dark Universe with 2017’s “The Mummy,” the movie flopped. It earned $409 million at the box office with a $345 million budget, including marketing, and Deadline estimated Universal would lose $95 million on the film after all was said and done.

Based on critic reviews, “The Mummy” wasn’t great, with just a 15% on Rotten Tomatoes, but they specifically called out Cruise as the major problem. IndieWire called it “the worst Tom Cruise movie ever,” while Variety highlighted that Cruise was still trying to play it like a typical Cruise project, which it wasn’t. Audiences have come to expect a certain kind of flick and a specific type of character from the actor, and “The Mummy” just isn’t that. “The problem at its heart is that the reality of what the film is — a Tom Cruise vehicle — is at war with the material,” Owen Gleiberman wrote for Variety, adding that Cruise’s “flirtation with the dark side is almost entirely theoretical.”