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  • WHY HOLLYWOOD WON'T CAST BRENDAN FRASER ANYMORE

  • 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.

  • BOMBING AT THE BOX OFFICE

  • Fraser had a rough 2010, and that year may be why he's become persona non grata in Hollywood.

  • In the span of two months, Fraser starred in two box office disasters. The medical drama

  • Extraordinary Measures was universally panned by critics, who said it belonged on television.

  • Audiences stayed home, and it earned just $12 million off a $31 million budget. Three

  • months later, Fraser starred in Furry Vengeance. Compared to Extraordinary Measures, Furry

  • Vengeance performed about the same, grossing $17.6 million off a $35 million budget. Unfortunately

  • for Fraser, the film was universally crushed by critics.

  • KILLED HIS OWN COMEBACK

  • Fraser's kid-friendly action flick, Journey to the Center of the Earth, was a surprise

  • hit. It become one of the highest-grossing movies of 2008, earning an impressive $101.7

  • million. New Line Cinema wanted a sequelfast. But Fraser wanted to hold out for the original's

  • director, Eric Brevig, who was busy finishing Yogi Bear 3-D. The studio decided to use 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 have been worse. Johnson replaced

  • Fraser only months after Furry Vengeance bombed in theaters, a time when Fraser desperately

  • needed better work.

  • THE MUMMY FRANCHISE LIMPED ON

  • The first Mummy movie from 1999, while not a hit with critics, earned a massive $155

  • million in theaters. The sequel, The Mummy Returns, was an even bigger hit, grossing

  • a staggering $202 million in 2001, and making it one of the 10 highest-grossing movies that

  • year. One would think that Universal Pictures would try to rush out a threequel. But because

  • of various delays, the third Mummy didn't arrive until 2008, with a new director and

  • an almost entirely new cast on board. By then, audiences had grown tired of the franchise,

  • especially after the Scorpion King spin-off. That fatigue showed in the film's performance.

  • It barely crossed $100 million in the U.S., signaling the beginning of the end. The Mummy

  • had decayed.

  • LACKLUSTER PROJECTS

  • Some of Fraser's biggest flops included the live-action adaptation of Dudley Do-Right,

  • which grossed a paltry $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 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.

  • HIS WEIRD GOLDEN GLOBES CLAP

  • 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.

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WHY HOLLYWOOD WON'T CAST BRENDAN FRASER ANYMORE

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