Everyone who worked on Thor: The Dark World hated it more than you do!
Getting to work on the set of a Marvel movie might seem like a dream come true, but not everyone who gets a chance to bring an iconic comic character to life has a ~super~ experience.
Here are 17 actors and directors who regretted working on Marvel movies:
1.
Terrence Howard, who originally held the role of Rhodey / War Machine in Iron Man, refused to come back for the sequel because the studio wanted to pay him an eighth of what he’d already been promised in his three-picture deal in order to pay costar Robert Downey Jr. more.
Paramount / ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
2.
Mickey Rourke worked with the Iron Man 2 writer and director to make Ivan Vanko / Whiplash more than just “a complete murderous revenging bad guy,” but “unfortunately, the [people] at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy so most of the performance ended up [on] the floor.”
Paramount / ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
He told Crave Online, “If they want to make mindless comic book movies, then I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want to have to care so much and work so hard, and then fight them for intelligent reasoning, and just because they’re calling the shots they… You know, I didn’t work for three months on the accent and all the adjustments and go to Russia just so I could end up on the floor.”
3.
Director Josh Trank said that what he tried to do with Fantastic Four (2015) was “so arrogant for somebody who hadn’t really gotten the handle of his own skill set as a filmmaker,” and he felt bitter about the experience for years.
Albert L. Ortega / Getty Images
He told the Hollywood Reporter, “What I had just experienced after Fantastic Four came out and in the five months leading up to Fantastic Four being released, I was at home reading articles about myself, and to me, it felt like it was this mythological version of this out-of-control person who has the same name as me and who I didn’t quite relate to. I understood this character, Josh Trank, that was being portrayed on film Twitter, blogs, and other outlets, but the fact that he had the same name as me and had apparently been to the same places as me was just weird and surreal.”
4.
When the Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer director Tim Story told Jessica Alba that she needed to “cry pretty” while filming her character Sue Storm / Invisible Woman’s death scene, she almost quit acting.
20thcentfox / ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
When he told her that they could add CGI tears later on, she began to doubt her talents and instincts as an actor.
5.
Ryan Reynolds only played Wade Wilson / Deadpool in X-Men: Origins because he was already attached to the Deadpool solo movie, and the studio threatened to replace him if he refused.
20thcentfox / ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
He told Entertainment Weekly, “I just said, ‘I’ll do it, but it’s the wrong version. Deadpool isn’t correct in it.’”
6.
Even though she played the titular character, Jennifer Garner thought that Elektra was “awful,” and she wished that she could have waited until Kevin Feige took over the MCU.
20thcentfox / ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
She only did the Daredevil spinoff because it was part of her contract.
7.
Patty Jenkins was originally slated to direct Thor: The Dark World, but she left the production because she “did not believe that [she] could make a good movie out of the script that they were planning on doing” and “it would have looked like it was my fault.”
Axelle / FilmMagic / Via Getty
She told Vanity Fair, “It would’ve looked like, ‘Oh my god, this woman directed it and she missed all these things.’”
8.
In fact, when Jenkins signed on, Natalie Portman was excited to reprise her role as Jane Foster but after the director was replaced, she only stayed on because of her contractual obligations.
Walt Disney Co. / ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection
She declined to return for Thor: Ragnarok. However, after one meeting with director Taika Waititi, she agreed to return for the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder.
9.
Replacement director Alan Taylor said that working on the Thor sequel was “something I hope never to repeat and don’t wish upon anybody else,” because, “I was sort of given absolute freedom while we were shooting, and then in post, it turned into a different movie.”
Walt Disney Co. / ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection
He told the Hollywood Reporter, “The version I had started off with had more childlike wonder; there was this imagery of children, which started the whole thing… There was a slightly more magical quality. There was weird stuff going on back on Earth because of the convergence that allowed for some of these magical realism things. And there were major plot differences that were inverted in the cutting room and with additional photography. People [such as Loki] who had died were not dead. People who had broken up were back together again. I think I would like my version.”
10.
Going directly from playing Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom to reprising his role as Heimdall was “torture” that “ripped [Idris Elba’s] heart out.”
Walt Disney Co. / ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection
He told the Telegraph, “I’m thinking, 24 hours ago, I was Mandela. When I walked into the set, the extras called me Madiba. I was literally walking in this man’s boots… Then there I was, in this stupid harness, with this wig and this sword and these contact lenses.”
11.
Christopher Eccleston, who played Malekith, said that filming Thor: The Dark World was like “a gun in your mouth.”
Walt Disney Co. / ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection
The role required him to sit in the makeup chair for up to six hours a day, and a lot of the scenes explaining his character’s backstory had to be cut.
12.
After the release of Blade: Trinity, Wesley Snipes sued New Line Cinema for $5 million, alleging that they violated his contract by withholding part of his salary, forcing the script and certain cast and crew members on him, and harassing him because of his race.
New Line Cinema / ©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection
He was also plagued by claims his costar Patton Oswalt made about his alleged on-set behavior.
Snipes told the Guardian, “Why would people believe his version is true? Because they are predisposed to believing the Black guy is always the problem. And all it takes is one person. Mr. Oswalt, whom I really don’t know. I can barely remember him on the set but it’s fascinating that his statement alone was enough to make people go, ‘Yeah, you know Snipes has got a problem.’”
13.
Sally Field hated playing Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man because “it’s really hard to find a three-dimensional character in it, and you work it as much as you can, but you can’t put 10 pounds of shit in a 5-pound bag.”
Columbia Pictures / ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
She told The Howard Stern Show that she only accepted the role as a favor to Laura Ziskin, her friend and producing partner who passed away a year before the film was released.
14.
Director Sam Raimi said that Spider-Man 3 was “a movie that just didn’t work very well” because he “didn’t really believe in all the characters.”
Sony Pictures / ©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
He told the Nerdist podcast, “I should’ve just stuck with the characters and the relationships, and progressed them to the next step and not tried to top the bar. I think that was my mistake.”
15.
Producer Avi Arad regretted “forcing” the director to include Venom in Spider-Man 3 because “Venom is not a sideshow.”
Sony Pictures / ©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
He told Screen Rant, “In all fairness, I’ll take the guilt because of what Sam Raimi used to say in all of these interviews feeling guilty that I forced him into it. And you know what I learned? Don’t force anybody into anything.”
Arad later produced Venom.
16.
In 2003, writer/director Edgar Wright cowrote a treatment for Ant-Man and continuously delivered script rewrites over a decade of production delays. However, in 2014, Marvel Studios commissioned a script draft without his input so he formally left the project two months before production began.
David M. Benett / Dave Benett / Getty Images for Dior
He told Variety, “I wanted to make a Marvel movie but I don’t think they really wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie… Suddenly becoming a director-for-hire on it, you’re sort of less emotionally invested and you start to wonder why you’re there, really.”
17.
And finally, Robin Williams was originally cast as the lead character’s voice in Howard the Duck, but he quit after just a few days because he felt confined, as if he was “handcuffed to match the flapping duck’s bill.”
Harry Langdon / Getty Images
The scenes featuring Howard already been filmed so Williams had been forced to forgo his signature improvisational style and record his lines to match the footage precisely.
