Matthew Lillard Blames One Movie for His Hollywood Downfall

By Chris Snellgrove | Published 5 days ago

Back when he stole the scenes in the beginning Shout out movie, it seemed like Matthew Lillard was destined to be Hollywood’s next big A-lister. Fast forward to the present day, however, and he is best known for his voice acting and convention appearances. Many of his fans have wondered what happened to his career, and the actor has a surprising idea: he blames his fall from Hollywood on the failure of the box office. Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

In a recent interview with Business Insider, Matthew Lillard said, “I thought I was going to be No. 1 on the phone book for the next 10 years of movies” after that second film featuring the Scooby gang dropped. “And the truth was exactly the opposite,” he said. This essentially killed his dreams of becoming an A-lister, and he had to finally reassess his priorities as an actor due to the film’s failure.

Scooby-Doo Failure 2

By today’s standards, the box office failure that ended the hopes of Matthew Lillard’s A-lister seems very mild: against a budget of $25-$80 million, this Scooby sequel earned $181.2 million. Compared to the recent failures of Warner Bros. films Flash again The Joker 2that kind of middling performance seems too soft. However, the first film earned WB $275.7 million against a budget of $84 million, so this sequel was a huge disappointment for the franchise, bringing in about $100 million less than its predecessor.

Making matters worse is the fact that Scooby-Doo 2 he was completely reviled by the critics. Rotten Tomatoes has a critical rating of 22 percent, an important compromise due to the fact that, unlike the first film, only very young and immature children will appreciate this second outing. The movie was bad enough to earn the name of a genre award: the Razzie for Worst Remake or Sequel.

Matthew Lillard’s Amazing Attitude

As for Matthew Lillard, he looks back on all of this with a Zen perspective, noting that he previously “got caught up in the success of what I was doing… quote unquote.” When the Scooby sequel failed and put a stop to his career ambitions, he stopped chasing this level of fame.

Putting things into perspective, Matthew Lillard remembers the opportunity Dancing with the Starsand he realized that appearing in something so silly would effectively kill his chances of bringing home an Academy Award. So far, she has told her agent what her priorities are now and why she turned down her chance to become a TV star. “I’m going to be famous and not a great actor, and I just wanted to be a great actor.”

Shaggy for the New Generation

In many ways, this patience paid off: instead of denying Scooby-Doo, Matthew Lillard became Shaggy’s voice actor in several animated features. Like Mark Hamill before him, the Shout out The veteran took on a killer role in voice acting, winning a new army of fans. And pivot acting to voice acting doesn’t stop him from getting great roles in important movies (like the one that won the Oscar His descendants) and silly movies (like Five nights at Freddy’s).

Honestly, we’ve been big fans of Matthew Lillard since the first time Shout outand we can guarantee that you’re somehow more adorable in person than you are on the silver screen. It’s hard not to sympathize with his A-lister dreams dying, but it’s good that he made peace by embracing a different path as an actor. Given how good he is in everything (especially David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return), we can only hope to see more off-kilter games from Lillard in the near future.

Source: Business Insider