Like another answer said, one movie shouldn’t end an actors career. There are so many factors that cause a movie to fail that it is beyond the actors control most of the time.
Take Taylor Kitsch for instance. In one year he was in three bombs of movies, two huge and one smaller one. The Friday Night Lights actor was first seen starring in John Carter which came out in March 2012.
The director, Andrew Stanton had stated that he wasn’t too satisfied with how the movie turned out. He stated that part of the problem came from the fact that he was a first-time live action director being drunk with power after receiving too much money and creative control.
The film is considered one of the Disney’s largest box office losses. It had an estimated budget of $250,000,000 and brought in $284,139,100 worldwide. It contributed to Disney's Studio Entertainment division reporting an $84 million loss in the first quarter of 2012. Issues with marketing, management changes at Disney, and a lack of merchandising on scale with such a large budget movie all believed to contribute to the failure. Plans for the two sequels that were already in development prior to the film's release were scrapped. Taylor Kitsch seemed to have very little to do with the failure of this movie.
Next up is Battleship which came out in May 2012.
With a production budget of $220,000,000, NBC Universal had a lot riding on this release. They opened the movie overseas first which they hoped would drive higher numbers in the U.S., as had been the case for Disney with The Avengers a couple weeks earlier. It didn’t work. Total overseas numbers were $237,602,860 and domestic numbers were $65,422,625 for a total of $303,025,485. Most movies generally need to bring in twice what they cost to be considered profitable.
Many complaints about the film weren’t directed at the Taylor Kitsch led ensemble cast, but that the story was boring, full of clichés and plot holes. Hasbro toy sales declined after the movie was released. While the economic slump was mainly to blame, some believe the bad reception the movie received may have played a part.
Lastly is Savages which was released in July 2012.
Many of the complaints about this movie were aimed at the director, Oliver Stone. Some say that the movie was not as edgy as it thought it was and that it tried to hard to cover up a shallow story. The budget was an estimated $45,000,000 and the total box office was $82,966,152. This was not as disastrous as the first two movies, but it was not anywhere close to being a hit.
Taylor Kitsch was positioning himself to be the next big thing in 2012. If these three projects were successful, it might have launched his career to another level. But his career did slow down after these three gut punches. Battleship director Peter Berg put Taylor in Lone Survivor which did well. He unfortunately starred in the much maligned second season of True Detective. This guy can’t catch a break. He did however receive good reviews for playing David Koresh in the mini-series Waco.
While he continues to act, the decision to star in the three ill-fated movies of 2012 blunted his momentum. If his acting were to blame for the failures, then his career might have been stopped in it’s tracks. He was just unlucky enough to pick three bad projects in a row, two of which were big budget tentpoles. All actors have flops, it was just that Taylor’s came out in quick succession, splashing all over the news, turning him into box office poison.
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