If you don’t know the concept, “Movie Jail” is the term used for when an actor/director/producer who used to be the darling of Hollywood suddenly loses all work for whatever reason and can’t even be hired for a B movie, so you wind up not seeing them for a long time and only occasionally do they pop back-up in some Z-grade dreck.
What causes people to be put in movie-jail varies, either diva or outright toxic behavior on-set, personal feuds with other Hollywood people, Weinstein-inspired blacklists, or even just starring/directing/producing a bunch of major bombs in a role that completely saps a directors credibility. Generally if you see a director who directed something giant in the 80’s/90’s and then only worked on Sci-Fi channel original movies since, they’re in movie jail.
99% of the time it’s all Hollywood BS and as seen recently a lot of actresses were put in movie jail simply for not complying with the perverted demands of the higher-ups. But this is for the rare person put into movie jail that you completely think was justified, and not just because they were in prison or retired from Hollywood. It has to be people who continued to try to work in Hollywood but all their opportunities all narrowed down suddenly to just a trickle.
This is an easy pick but Jeffrey Jones getting put in movie jail is justified. He was making 2-3 movies/TV shows a year since the mid-80’s and was seemingly a great character actor up until his 2002 arrest for possession of child pornography. Since then he’s only had 3 roles in 15 years, Deadwood being his biggest acting role and that ended in 2006.
Did this happen to Sean Young? A hot career in the 1980s, then she pretty much dropped off the screen in the 1990s. ISTR hearing she got blackballed for some reason or another.
Kevin Costner developed a taste for absurdly expensive productions that also went over budget. He produced and starred in Dances With Wolves, Waterworld, Message in a Bottle, The Bodyguard, Thirteen Days. Some of these films were successful. I’m not sure they made enough to justify their big budgets.
He didn’t stop working but his role as a producer of big blockbuster films is gone.
I remember (but can’t seem to find) a scathing article in Entertainment Weekly about how difficult it was to work with Mike Myers. It certainly convinced me at the time that he was a total jerk.
James Spader was a rising star in the late 1980s, and scaled back his career drastically when he had kids. This, however, is not the same as what the OP had in mind.
Nicolas Cage is probably one of the best examples of this. I wish Tom Cruise would do the same.
One counter-example that surprised me is Michael Bay. Apparently he is a creep if you’re an attractive young woman (which, given current events, means movie jail may be in his immediate future). But for everyone else, he apparently is a great guy to work with. I’ve heard that one reason Bay keeps getting work is because most people really enjoy making a movie with him.
Another one is Adam Sandler. Everyone is now talking about how Sandler is using movies as a means of going on trips with his buddies. But apparently they really are fun excursions. Sandler doesn’t act like he’s the star and go around with a “you all owe your careers to me” attitude.
My understanding is that Sandler’s movies reliably turn a profit too. He could do more serious movies like “Punch Drunk Love” or “Funny People”, or he could make money being a goofball and going on paid vacations. Given that choice, I’m not sure I’d do anything different.
Whenever there are threads like this, it is a virtual certainty that Annie will post something that doesn’t quite match the question posed by the OP. I’m genuinely surprised when she actually answers one of these questions accurately.
He directed Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, then The Deer Hunter. Then came Heaven’s Gate. After that, he became pretty much the butt of jokes. In looking him up, I see he died in July of 2016. Guess his career’s officially over now.
If you wish to disagree with Annie, or to say that she’s missing the point of the OP, you may. But this is getting too personal for Cafe Society. Restrict your commentary on what other posters have said to what they’ve said in this thread.
