Getting to work on the set of a Marvel movie might seem like a dream come true, but not everyone who gets a chance to bring an iconic comic character to life has a ~super~ experience.
Here are 17 actors and directors who regretted working on Marvel movies:
1.Terrence Howard, who originally held the role of Rhodey / War Machine in Iron Man, refused to come back for the sequel because the studio wanted to pay him an eighth of what he'd already been promised in his three-picture deal in order to pay costar Robert Downey Jr. more.
2.Mickey Rourke worked with the Iron Man 2 writer and director to make Ivan Vanko / Whiplash more than just "a complete murderous revenging bad guy," but "unfortunately, the [people] at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy so most of the performance ended up [on] the floor.”
3.Director Josh Trank said that what he tried to do with Fantastic Four (2015) was "so arrogant for somebody who hadn’t really gotten the handle of his own skill set as a filmmaker," and he felt bitter about the experience for years.
4.When the Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer director Tim Story told Jessica Alba that she needed to "cry pretty" while filming her character Sue Storm / Invisible Woman's death scene, she almost quit acting.
5.Ryan Reynolds only played Wade Wilson / Deadpool in X-Men: Origins because he was already attached to the Deadpool solo movie, and the studio threatened to replace him if he refused.
6.Even though she played the titular character, Jennifer Garner thought that Elektra was "awful," and she wished that she could have waited until Kevin Feige took over the MCU.
7.Patty Jenkins was originally slated to direct Thor: The Dark World, but she left the production because she "did not believe that [she] could make a good movie out of the script that they were planning on doing" and "it would have looked like it was my fault."
8.In fact, when Jenkins signed on, Natalie Portman was excited to reprise her role as Jane Foster but after the director was replaced, she only stayed on because of her contractual obligations.
9.Replacement director Alan Taylor said that working on the Thor sequel was "something I hope never to repeat and don’t wish upon anybody else," because, "I was sort of given absolute freedom while we were shooting, and then in post, it turned into a different movie."
10.Going directly from playing Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom to reprising his role as Heimdall was "torture" that "ripped [Idris Elba's] heart out."
11.Christopher Eccleston, who played Malekith, said that filming Thor: The Dark World was like "a gun in your mouth."
12.After the release of Blade: Trinity, Wesley Snipes sued New Line Cinema for $5 million, alleging that they violated his contract by withholding part of his salary, forcing the script and certain cast and crew members on him, and harassing him because of his race.
13.Sally Field hated playing Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man because "it's really hard to find a three-dimensional character in it, and you work it as much as you can, but you can't put 10 pounds of shit in a 5-pound bag."
14.Director Sam Raimi said that Spider-Man 3 was "a movie that just didn't work very well" because he "didn't really believe in all the characters."
15.Producer Avi Arad regretted "forcing" the director to include Venom in Spider-Man 3 because "Venom is not a sideshow."
16.In 2003, writer/director Edgar Wright cowrote a treatment for Ant-Man and continuously delivered script rewrites over a decade of production delays. However, in 2014, Marvel Studios commissioned a script draft without his input so he formally left the project two months before production began.
17.And finally, Robin Williams was originally cast as the lead character's voice in Howard the Duck, but he quit after just a few days because he felt confined, as if he was "handcuffed to match the flapping duck's bill."
