Dane DeHaan was the lead in Chronicle while Michael B. Jordan played a supporting role, and the divergence in their careers since then is one of Hollywood's more striking contrasts. DeHaan landed the significant part of Harry Osborn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which turned out to be the last film of that franchise, and then headlined Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets alongside Cara Delevingne. Two entries on this list sharing the same expensive misfire. The opportunities were there, but none of them stuck, and his profile has faded considerably since those early, promising years. | © ABC
Jessica Alba built early momentum with Dark Angel and parlayed it into a movie career that briefly looked promising, with roles in Sin City and Fantastic Four putting her in front of large audiences. Neither franchise did her any favors in the long run. Fantastic Four and its sequel have been largely forgotten, and films like The Love Guru and The Eye in 2008 effectively ended the experiment. Outside of Robert Rodriguez's continued loyalty, her film work since then has been minimal — though she did pivot successfully into business with The Honest Company, which turned out to be worth considerably more than any movie she ever made. | © Paramount Pictures
David Caruso made a splash in the first season of NYPD Blue, decided he was worth more than the show was paying, and walked away in 1994 to become a movie star. Within a year, Kiss of Death and Jade had both come and gone without making much of an impression, and by 1997, he was back on network television. The hubris-to-humbling timeline was remarkably short, though he did eventually land on his feet with CSI: Miami, which kept him employed for a decade and gave him a second act most people in his position never get. | © Paramount Pictures
Game of Thrones made Emilia Clarke one of the most recognizable faces on television, and Hollywood wasted little time giving her a shot at film stardom. The results were rough: she landed in the worst Terminator installment, appeared in Solo: A Star Wars Story, which effectively killed the standalone film concept for that franchise, and then followed it up with the poorly received rom-com Last Christmas. Three swings, three misses, and the window for a movie career appears to have quietly closed. | © HBO
John Ritter was one of the most gifted physical comedians of his generation on Three's Company, but his film career never found a vehicle worthy of that talent. His most impressive screen work came in a supporting role in Sling Blade, a dramatic turn that showed real depth, but it was a small part in a small film. Otherwise, the movie highlights were playing second fiddle to a child in the Problem Child films and a string of forgettable 1980s comedies that have been largely wiped from collective memory. | © ABC
Hollywood made a genuine push to turn Ronda Rousey into a movie star off the back of her MMA fame, landing her supporting roles in The Expendables 3 and Furious 7 before attaching her to lead a remake of Road House. The problem was that the acting ability never quite matched the ambition. The Road House project was eventually scrapped and handed to Jake Gyllenhaal instead, which is a pretty definitive verdict on how things were going. Rousey hasn't appeared in a film since 2019, making her Hollywood chapter one of the shorter ones on this list.| © WWE
Shelley Long earned four Emmy nominations for Cheers and then made one of television's most famous career miscalculations, leaving the show at the height of its popularity to focus on movies. The films that followed, including Hello Again, Troop Beverly Hills, and Frozen Assets, did not justify the decision. The Brady Bunch movies gave her a second moment in the mid-90s, but outside of that, her post-Cheers career stands as one of Hollywood's most cited examples of a TV star who walked away from the right thing at the wrong time. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Brandon Routh was handed one of the most coveted roles in Hollywood as the first major Superman since Christopher Reeve, and Superman Returns landed with a thud lukewarm enough to get the sequel canceled before it started. The DC universe kept him employed, but not in the way anyone envisioned; he ended up cycling through The CW's Arrowverse rather than headlining blockbusters. It's a cautionary tale worth noting now that David Corenswet has taken on the cape. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Cara Delevingne's move from modeling to acting followed a familiar pattern: she disappeared into the Suicide Squad ensemble. Then she headlined Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, one of the more expensive box office failures in recent memory. Television became the next stop, with appearances on Only Murders in the Building and American Horror Story keeping her visible without rebuilding the movie career that never fully materialized. The one genuine bright spot was playing Sally Bowles in the West End in 2024, which earned real praise and suggested there might be more there than Hollywood ever found. | © 20th Century Fox
Sam Worthington was handed the lead role in the highest-grossing film of all time and somehow still didn't become a movie star, which is a remarkable outcome when you think about it. The world so thoroughly overshadows his character in Avatar around him that most people who've seen the film twice couldn't tell you his name. Outside of Pandora, Terminator: Salvation and Clash of the Titans both failed to establish him as a draw, and his filmography over the past 15 years makes a pretty convincing case that the Avatar films happened to him more than they were built around him. | © Beta Fiction
Alicia Silverstone's career peaked so early and so completely with Clueless that almost everything after it felt like a step down. Batman & Robin was toxic to virtually everyone involved, and Blast from the Past failed to establish her as a bankable lead outside of the role that made her famous. She has worked consistently in the years since, but ask anyone to name one of her post-2000 films, and you'll mostly get blank stares, which is a strange fate for someone who was once one of the most talked-about actresses in Hollywood. | © WTFilms
Garrett Hedlund was handed one of the bigger opportunities of his generation as the lead in Tron: Legacy, and the film came and went without turning him into a star. His work in Inside Llewyn Davis showed he had real ability, but by that point, the momentum had already stalled. The clearest verdict on where his career ended up came when the long-awaited third Tron film was announced, Jeff Bridges is returning, but Hedlund isn't in the cast. | © Paramount+
Charlie Hunnam's run on Sons of Anarchy convinced Hollywood he had movie star potential, and for a moment, it looked like they might be right. But Pacific Rim proved to be more about CGI spectacle than its lead, The Lost City of Z saw him overshadowed by Tom Holland, and Guy Ritchie's King Arthur was a box office disaster that effectively ended the experiment. These days, he turns up in ensemble casts and smaller films, a long way from the leading man trajectory everyone assumed he was on. | © Focus Features
Courteney Cox left Friends as one of the most recognizable faces on television, but the transition to film never quite materialized the way it did for some of her castmates. The Scream franchise kept her visible, but always as part of an ensemble rather than a lead, and films like The Runner and 3000 Miles to Graceland didn't move the needle. By 2009, just five years after Friends ended, she was back in a sitcom with Cougar Town, which tells its own story about how the movie career went. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Jessica Biel broke out of 7th Heaven and briefly looked like a legitimate movie star, landing action roles that should have built momentum. Instead, films like Stealth and Next stalled her trajectory before it ever really got going, and by the 2010s, she had settled into Garry Marshall holiday ensemble territory, not exactly where anyone pictured her ending up. The Sinner gave her a second wind on cable, but it's hard not to wonder what might have happened with better choices in those crucial early years. | © Hulu
Not every faded career can be blamed on bad luck; sometimes, actors are handed exactly what they need to break through and find a way to fumble it anyway. These are the stars who had the talent, the opportunities, and the platform, and still couldn't make it work.
