There was a time when actor Brendan Fraser was starring in multiple movies regularly. Those days are long, long gone. Where did it all go wrong for the Indianapolis-born actor? Let's count the ways Dudley Do-Right started doing so little. Watch our original vid above or read on below, and toss us a sub on YouTube for endless entertainment.
Bombing at the box office
2010 was a rough year for Fraser and may have been the reason he's become persona non grata in Hollywood. In the span of just two months, Fraser starred in not one, but two box office disasters. The first, the medical drama Extraordinary Measures, features Fraser teaming up with Harrison Ford to develop a drug to help fight a life-threatening disease. As is typically the case with movies released in January, Extraordinary Measures was universally panned by critics, many of whom felt it belonged on the small screen. Audiences balked as well; the film earned just $12 million throughout its theatrical run, off a $31 million budget.
Three months later, Fraser was at the front of an even bigger bomb, Furry Vengeance. Compared to Extraordinary Measures, Furry Vengeance performed about the same at the box office; it grossed $17.6 million off a $35 million budget. Unfortunately for Fraser, the film was universally ripped to shreds by critics; it currently sits with an 8 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Hang in there, Brendan!
He thwarted his own comeback
In 2008, Fraser surprised everyone in Hollywood when the kid-friendly action-adventure flick, Journey to the Center of the Earth, turned out to be an unexpected hit. The film went on to become one of the highest-grossing flicks of 2008, earning an impressive $101.7 million. Naturally, the studio, New Line, wanted to quickly turn around a sequel.
However, Fraser wanted to hold out for the original film's director, Eric Brevig, who at the time was putting the final touches on Yogi Bear 3-D. Hollywood ending up bringing in a new director and replaced Fraser with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. On the one hand, Fraser's loyalty was admirable; on the other, his timing couldn't be worse. Johnson replaced Fraser only months after Furry Vengeance bombed in theaters, a time when Fraser desperately needed better work. We hope he can journey back into the spotlight.
The Mummy franchise dragged out for too long
Despite having a pretty rough decade or so, there was a time in movie history when Fraser was actually a legitimate box office star. That was due mostly to The Mummy franchise, which began all the way back in 1999. The first movie, while not a big hit with critics, went over well with audiences on its way to a massive $155 million box office run. The sequel, The Mummy Returns, was an even bigger hit. Working on only a slightly bigger budget than The Mummy, The Mummy Returns grossed a staggering $202 million in 2001, making it one of the 10 highest-grossing movies that year. By that point, one would think that the franchise's studio, Universal Pictures, would try to rush out a threequel.
Because of various delays, the third Mummy movie didn't actually arrive in theaters until 2008, with a brand-new director and an almost entirely new cast on board. By then, audiences had grown pretty tired of the franchise, especially after the Scorpion King spin-off; did we really need to wait six years for a third movie? That fatigue reflected in the film's box office returns. Despite being a hit overseas, it barely crossed the $100 million threshold in the States, signaling the beginning of the end for Fraser's career. As expected The Mummy started to decay.
Lackluster projects
Like many actors who hit big around the turn of the century, Fraser wound up starring in one bad movie after the next. Some of his biggest flops included the live-action adaptation of Dudley Do-Right, which grossed a jaw-dropping $9.9 million off a $70 million budget; the bizarre 2001 comedy Monkeybone, which earned just $5.4 million off a $75 million budget; and another bad cartoon adaptation, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which took in $20.9 million off an $80 million budget. At the time, Fraser was lucky with The Mummy franchise to counter these flops. Perhaps it's time for Fraser to stop working with animated characters.
Prestige actors swallowed him whole
To Fraser's credit, he was able to land a handful of roles in movies that went on to win Oscars. In 1998, director Bill Condon took a chance on him by casting him opposite Ian McKellen and Lynn Redgrave in the biopic of gay Hollywood director James Whale, Gods & Monsters. Fraser followed that with a role in 2002's The Quiet American, for which his co-star, Michael Caine, received an Oscar nomination. Then, in 2005, Fraser was one of the many famous faces who made up Paul Haggis' divisive Oscar winner, Crash.
Despite giving it his all in Gods & Monsters, Fraser's surface-level performance paled in comparison to the complex and multi-layered work by McKellen and Redgrave, both of whom went on to receive Oscar nominations. In The Quiet American, he mostly stayed in the background as Caine delivered a subtle showcase. With so many famous stars around him, it was tough for Fraser to standout in Crash.
His Golden Globes clap was really weird
Fraser became the subject of humorous GIFs, memes, and general Internet ridicule after cameras caught him awkwardly laughing and clapping while Robert De Niro was presenting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2010 Golden Globes. The three-second-long moment had everyone laughing the night of the ceremony; video remixes, including one set to Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl," made it the stuff of Internet legend. Once the affable star of innocuous Hollywood movies, Fraser looked awkward and somewhat out of place. It's okay Brendan, we'll still give you an awkward ovation.