15 Actors Who Regretted Being In Dc Movies

Every actor has at least one role they regret. Nowadays, starring in a superhero movie can equal immediate fame and love from comic book fans. Many stars have found their stardom through superhero movies, like Margot Robbie, Gal Gadot, and Chris Pratt, while other more seasoned actors, Robert Downey Jr comes to mind, have made a comeback through them.

However, that isn’t always the case. With so many reboots and interpretations of classic superheroes, there are bound to be some that don’t live up to the fans’ expectations. While Marvel is, without a doubt, doing extremely well with new movies year round, it is a well-known fact that DC movies have struggled to keep up.

Try as they might, Warner Bros. just can’t seem to find a cohesive way to portray their cinematic universe as successfully as Marvel has.

That is not to say that DC hasn’t had success, but in general, their movies are divisive and the actors end up taking the fall. As a result, many actors have regretted working in DC films because of how their character was received on the big screen or how their lives were affected later on for taking such iconic roles.

Here are 15 Actors Who Regretted Being In DC Movies.

George Clooney - Batman & Robin

It is no secret George Clooney fully regrets making this movie and with good reason. Batman & Robin is easily one of the most-hated entries in the Batman films. If it hadn’t been for Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, fans would still have a sour taste in their mouth when it comes to this superhero.

In an interview with The Graham Norton Show, Clooney apologized for ruining Batman: “I thought at the time that this was going to be a very good career move. Um, it wasn’t.”

When the Gravity actor took on the role of Batman, he was fresh off playing Dr. Doug Ross in the TV series ER. He clearly thought this iconic role would jump him into stardom, but instead, he took a pretty bad spill.

Thankfully, Clooney went on to have a successful career with only a few questionable roles along the way.

Halle Berry - Catwoman

It’s not unusual for an actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actress/Actor and then come out with a terrible movie a few years later– just ask Natalie Portman, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Lawrence, or half of the actors who have won an Oscar in this category.

When Halle Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002 for her role in Monster’s Ball, she was on top of the world.

Surely, Berry would continue with amazing roles in the near future. Instead, two years later, she starred in Catwoman as the titular role.

The movie was so bad that it received several nominations for the Razzie Awards in 2004 and Berry took home the raspberry statuette for Worst Actress. In her acceptance speech, with mocked surprise, she thanked Warner Bros. for casting her. At least she was a good sport about it.

Ryan Reynolds - Green Lantern

Superhero gigs haven’t always been a highlight for Ryan Reynolds. In 2011, Warner Bros and DC Comics released the first theatrical release of the Green Lantern with Reynolds as the Emerald Knight. Unfortunately, the movie was met mostly with negative reviews, barely scraping by at the Box Office. The movie only made about $19 million above the cost of the movie itself.

Reynolds has said in several interviews that the project didn’t work because of the studios’ focus on the release date instead of the tone of the film and the script. While The Green Lantern was a real miss, it wasn’t all so bad for Reynolds. He met his wife Blake Lively on set and has moved on to playing Deadpool, the superhero role he was born to play.

Christopher Reeve - Superman IV

Christopher Reeve is the iconic Superman. The first two Superman films were critically praised, but audiences and critics weren’t so convinced when fourth installment came around – there were many issues involving the production of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. The movie’s budget was cut in half and the visual effects suffered greatly.

The movie was filled with ridiculous scenes, such as one involving Superman doing aerobics and another that included him roasting a duck with his laser vision.

Reeve fought the movie to the very end, trying his hardest to make the film right, but it was out of his hands. In an interview with the UK talk show This Morning, Reeve said he found it highly unlikely he would ever reprise the role, as he thought the first two movies were for the time capsules, while three and four were not.

Josh Brolin - Jonah Hex

It is always a tough sell for production companies to release a movie based on an obscure comic book character. Such was the case with Jonah Hex, a scarred bounty hunter who fights supernatural villains in the Old West.When all was said and done, audiences really didn’t like Jonah Hex and neither did its star, Josh Brolin.

In interviews, Brolin openly spoke about his issues with the project and the way the movie was marketed. It didn’t help that the original director quit the movie midway, leaving the movie to be reshot and rewritten.

In a podcast with the Nerdist, Brolin doesn’t hold back on how much he hated the experience of making this movie, saying the drama behind the scenes would have been a better movie than the one they made.

Even though it seems like a production nightmare, Brolin says he would love to do it again, but differently this time.

Ben Affleck - Batman Vs Superman

Some actors have had bad luck in their first superhero attempts, but went on to find the right role for their career. That is not necessarily the case for Ben Affleck.

After Daredevil’s commercial flop, Affleck had a chance to redeem himself as the new Batman in Batman v Superman. Sadly, even though many pointed out Affleck’s performance as the best part of the movie, Batman v Superman was divisive amongst fans and critics.

Affleck wasn’t able to hide his disappointment when he heard the feedback during an interview and his reaction quickly became a meme.

The Argo actor-director felt the movie’s production was out of his control. He wanted to do Batman justice by reprising the role and directing the next movie.

However, Affleck has recently backed out from writing and directing the project but he is still involved as a producer.

Tommy Lee Jones - Batman Forever

It’s not easy having a villain duo in a superhero movie – for Tommy Lee Jones it was downright disastrous.

Tommy Lee Jones, who played Two-Face, hated working on the third installment of the Batman franchise, and a great amount of that hatred was directed towards his partner in crime, Jim Carrey, who played The Riddler.

Jones played the main villain and captured the character’s maniacal menacing personality, while Carrey’s Riddler fully transformed about a third into the movie, offering an alliance with Two-Face to take down Batman.

The problem was Jones really hated working with Carrey and couldn’t stand his buffoonery. Three hours of make up on top of that made Batman Forever one of Jones’s least favorite acting gigs.

Jared Leto - Suicide Squad

In case you were asleep for all of 2016, Jared Leto really didn’t enjoy the final version of Suicide Squad. He made certain he shouted it from the rooftops of social media and in any interview.

DC fans were excited about the news of a Suicide Squad movie, certain the eclectic collection of supervillains would be a refreshing addition to the DCEU. However, due to major rewrites and reshoots, Suicide Squad ended up as a lukewarm attempt to rebrand this cinematic universe.

It didn’t help that the trailers hinted at the Joker being the main antagonist, which turned out to be very misleading.

It turns out Leto filmed way more material that didn’t end up in the theatrical release, turning his role into nothing more than a cameo with no consequence. He then made it his mission to tell everyone how unhappy he was with the end result.

Marion Cotillard - The Dark Knight Rises

Before the third and last installment of the Dark Knight series was released in theaters, fans were constantly theorizing Marion Cotillard’s character and her role in the finale.

Rumors emerged that she was supposed to be Talia Al Ghul, Ras Al Ghul’s daughter, but Nolan had asked Cotillard to keep this a secret when going on interviews. If it was revealed who her character really was, the shock value would disappear.

The La Vie en Rose actress hated lying on interviews about her character and repeating she was only Bruce Wayne’s love interest. While she didn’t hate working on the movie, she does echo the opinions of many viewers about her character’s final scene.

Fans considered her passing awkward and while Cotillard doesn’t disagree, she dislikes being remembered for this scene when she has done so much good work.

Val Kilmer - Batman Forever

Val Kilmer is notoriously known for being difficult on set, and he made no exception when he worked with Joel Schumacher on Batman Forever.

Schumacher eventually confronted Kilmer and told him to respect everyone, which Kilmer responded to by keeping silent for the next two weeks.

Apparently, his anger was derived from the fact he was unhappy with how the movie was going. He’d hoped they were aiming it more towards fans than to a general audience, but according to him* that wasn’t the case.

When it was time for a fourth installment, Val Kilmer bowed out and George Clooney stepped in, which might have been for the best. George Clooney may not have been the happiest camper after the role, but he was more than happy to take it on at the time.

Margot Robbie - Suicide Squad

When the Australian actress took the role of Harley Quinn in 2016’s Suicide Squad, fans couldn’t get enough of her. While Suicide Squad was met with mixed reviews from critics and disappointed fans, Margot Robbie’s performance as the Joker’s love interest and partner in crime was critically acclaimed.

However, Robbie does regret one thing about playing such a big role in comic book film: a level of fame she was not prepared for.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Robbie discussed how nobody warned her how different her life would be and the negative side of fame, which included threats. This led to a security team following her around and constant background checks.

“I just wish someone had explained a lot of those things to me early on. I wouldn’t have resented the position I found myself in because I would’ve known what I was getting myself into,” she stated.

Christian Bale - The Dark Knight Trilogy

For an entire decade, Christian Bale was the Batman, eclipsing every performance of the Caped Crusader in the ’90s. While many fans still prefer The Dark Knight trilogy as the best Batman franchise so far, Bale still has some regrets about his performance.

While he doesn’t regret being a part of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, he does wish he had accomplished more with the role.

In an interview with Yahoo!, the British actor said he didn’t quite manage what he hoped he would, feeling he hadn’t quite nailed the character. He goes on to say he wanted to portray the character accurately as the dark, messed up character that he is.

However, he said he would never go back to reprise the role and has nothing else to offer it.

Marlon Brando - Superman

Before Val Kilmer annoyed everyone he worked with, there was Marlon Brando. Brando is known for classic roles like Polanski in Streetcar Named Desire or Don Corleone in The Godfather, but he is equally known for his spectacular peevishness during the filming of Superman.

When it came to playing Superman’s father Jor-El, Brando thought he could play him as a “suitcase or a green bagel.” It took much convincing, but eventually the director Richard Donner convinced Brando that Jor-El couldn’t be a breakfast food.

Brando never read the script because he was worried about the quality and read all of his lines from cue cards. In an interview with David Letterman in 1982, co-star Christopher Reeve accused Brando of phoning it in.

Matthew Goode - Watchmen

When it came time to bring Watchmen to the big screen, fans waited enthusiastically for the Alan Moore graphic novel adaptation. Unfortunately for Matthew Goode, who played one of the leading roles, fans weren’t crazy about his portrayal of Ozymandias.

Fans were worried he had been miscast in terms of looks, and Goode really lost this battle when he told fans to buzz off.

The truth was that Goode wasn’t happy about how he portrayed the character either. In an interview with the Huffington Post, he said he wasn’t convinced he was the right choice to play it, and felt awful that Jude Law had been their first choice for the role.

While he didn’t regret making the film or the experience, he does regret the outcome of his performance and his off-hand comments to the fans.

Sean Connery - League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Nothing screams out regret more than an actor quitting completely after a terrible role. Such was the case for Sean Connery and his role in the adaptation of the graphic novel League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

In 2003, Connery took ton he role of Allan Quatermain, one of the main characters in Alan Moore’s graphic novel. Even though Connery was the highest-paid and most well-known actor of the cast, he was also the most miserable one of the bunch.

People on set reported Connery constantly fought with the director, Stephen Norrington, and even called him insane in an interview with the British newspaper The Times.

In the end, the iconic James Bond had such a horrible time making this movie that he decided to officially retire. In the same interview, he called the experience a nightmare, claiming that it had a great influence on him and how he viewed showbiz.

Can you think of any other DC stars who regretted their roles? Let us know in the comments!