10 Times When Actors Were Blamed For A Movie’s Failure By the Filmmakers (2 of 3)

Paul Kaye Blamed Edward Norton’s Narcissism – American History X

American History X is actually quite a strange instance of “failure”, as at almost every aspect of filmmaking, this 1998 crime drama was a success, earning itself praise from not only the critics but also the audiences. Also, Edward Norton was nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars that year.

Despite that, the movie’s director, Tony Kaye was quite disappointed with the theatrical release of the flick, as several cuts and edits were made by New Line Cinema and finally a version that was co-edited by Norton was also released.

Kaye tried his level best to get his name removed from all the movie’s promotional content as well the credits and even ended up using more than $100,000 of his money on a lot of newspaper ads in leading newspapers, disparaging the producer of the movie John Morrissey and Norton.

Also, Kaye referred to Norton as “a narcissistic dilettante”, and accused him of making sure that the original movie was edited according to his whims and fancies.

The irony of this whole situation, of course, is that Norton’s performance was the only good thing about this movie and his acting career really took off after this movie, while Kaye found it really difficult to find any kind of meaningful work in the industry ever since.

John Schlesinger Blamed Madonna For Her Diva Attitude – The Next Best Thing

Barring a few exceptions, musicians-turned-actors are beyond pathetic as actors, and the movies featuring them are terrible as well. The Next Best Thing is one of those flicks.

It was so terrible that the actress ended up winning her fourth Razzie award for Worst Actress, while the flick was also nominated for the Worst Screenplay, Worst Film, and Worst On-screen Couple. The box office numbers were horrible, too.

The movie follows the story of a straight woman (played by Madonna) and a gay man (Rupert Everett) who are fighting a custody battle for a child they had together. The movie was directed by none other than the legendary Oscar winner, John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy).

The fight between Schlesinger and Madonna went on throughout the movie’s production, and the director claimed that Madonna influenced every part of the movie, and she even requested the visual effects team to make sure she looked more beautiful in the movie!

And the director didn’t just blame her for ruining the movie, he even blamed her for his health issues. A few weeks after the movie was shot, Schlesinger suffered a heart attack.

A letter that he sent to his agent, that was released after his death, read: “I do not for one moment think that [her and producer Tom Rosenberg’s] behavior has not added to the reasons I have ended up here.” Yikes.

Paul Schrader Blamed The Unpredictable Behavior of Lindsay Lohan – The Canyons

A movie that was supposed to be a comeback flick for not only the film’s leading star Lindsay Lohan, but also for the legendary screenwriter Paul Schrader, who gave us brilliant movies like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, who was heading the project as a director on a script written by American Psycho writer Bret Easton Ellis. This erotic thriller also starred porn star, James Deen.

The flick was heavily criticized by the audiences and critics alike, as its horrible writing and direction made sure that the movie wouldn’t be a success. Even though Lohan did receive some praise, the movie ended up being a dud.

However, during the press tour, Schrader more than once blamed Lohan for not attending the press tours and promotional tours, and that his wish was to fire her for her unpredictable behavior during the post-production stage.

The erotic thriller was largely panned for its underwhelming writing and direction, though Lohan did receive some scattered praise, and the film’s mere $250,000 budget prevented it from being a catastrophic bust.

Since then Lohan’s attitude has made sure that she hasn’t been able to work in even one popular movie while Schrader himself has gained immense popularity after his 2017 drama First Reformed, a movie for which he also ended up being nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay.