In it, he got into incredible shape, shouted memorable lines like “This is Sparta,” and genuinely look and sounded like he could be the next big action star. 300 was the film that made Butler a household name. But, hey, sometimes you have to take a step back to take a leap forward, and that’s what Butler did in 2007. Neither of those films made it into more than 100 theaters, and neither grossed more than $400,000. Maybe something had been found.Ī rather dull 20 saw Butler in just two films – an inspirational sports drama in 2005 called The Game of Their Lives and as Beowulf in 2006’s Beowulf & Grendel. It wasn’t a critical success (32%), but audiences liked it (84%). It made around $155 million worldwide – over $100 million of which was from the international markets – and made just enough to make back its $70 million budget. The Phantom of the Opera, meanwhile, was more of a success, especially internationally. Dear Frankie went largely unseen – it’s a small drama, though, and wasn’t given a wide release. 2004 saw him in a well-received (81%) drama called Dear Frankie, and as the Phantom in a new Phantom of the Opera film. In spite of this, Hollywood saw something in Butler, so he was tried out in other types of roles. That’s right: Butler’s first three big Hollywood movies all underperformed at the box office and were all critical failures. His Hollywood career was not off to the greatest start.Ģ003 saw Butler billed third in Timeline, a film that grossed about half of its $80 million budget, and was panned by both critics (11% on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences (45%). The films scored 40% and 24% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes, neither of which is an endearing score. (The rule of thumb is that a studio needs to make about double a film’s budget to break even, although it varies from film to film.) Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life killed the film franchise and made over $100 million less than its predecessor. Reign of Fire grossed $82 million worldwide, only $22 million more than its reported budget, and likely losing the studio somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 million. It’s worth noting that neither of these movies did particularly well at the box office. In 2002, he had a big role in Reign of Fire, and played second fiddle to Angelina Jolie in the second Tomb Raider movie. It was a year after Attila that Butler broke into Hollywood, and where his career actually starts to get interesting. But despite those two relative successes, he found himself playing supporting roles little-known films and TV series for the next couple of years, with perhaps his biggest role coming as the lead in the three-hour miniseries Attila, playing the title character. That same year, he had a small role in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. Brown, something that was nominated for two Oscars – neither of which involved him – and was generally well-regarded. Gerard Butler was given his first role in the 1997 film Mrs. Note: All box office totals are found on BoxOfficeMojo. The answer to the second isn’t so easy, and requires one to explore his past in hopes of searching for a way to predict the future. After Gerard Butler starred in movies on back-to-back weekends, Gods of Egypt and London Has Fallen – neither of which was good – a question came across my mind that I couldn’t get rid of: What has Gerard Butler done that was even remotely successful? I followed up that question with this one: Could these two latest failures mark the end of Butler’s theatrical career? The answer to the first is an easy “yes, there are some things,” although the amount of good stuff he’s done is severely outweighed by the bad.
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