A 2015 Drama With A 91% Rotten Tomatoes Score Made Ryan Reynolds Rethink His Career

Do you know what the most critically acclaimed of all of Ryan Reynolds's movies is? Even if you took three guesses, there's a good chance you still wouldn't come up with the answer — 2015's "Mississippi Grind." Reynolds plays a man named Curtis, who is deemed a good luck charm by his gambling addict friend Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn). So Gerry gets the idea to take Curtis with him to a poker game with a huge cash payout in the hopes that Curtis's presence will increase his odds of winning.

The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus raves, "Well-acted and steeped in Southern atmosphere, 'Mississippi Grind' is a road movie and addiction drama that transcends each of its well-worn genres," with the film scoring a 91% certified fresh rating. Reynolds himself must surely be proud of the acclaim that "Mississippi Grind" earned and have only positive feelings for it. Interestingly, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Reynolds was more focused on the fact that it couldn't even hit $500K at the worldwide box office. The movie flopping devastated him so badly that it forced him to recalibrate his entire career going forward. 

To be fair, it's not as though Ryan Reynolds wasn't proud of "Mississippi Grind" at all. "'Mississippi Grind' is a movie I love passionately, but did not work. The movie worked, it's an incredible movie, but people didn't go to see it, and I recognized that," Reynolds told Entertainment Weekly. He then went on to explain that, as an actor who is getting paid to do a job, he feels responsible to deliver a product that makes money. "I thought, 'I have to return the investment made in me. It's show business. It's not just show. I have to produce something that these people who invest their money in can get a return."

Reynolds said that the experience made him start to more carefully consider the potential for profitability when choosing roles. He said he planned to start seeking a balance between projects he "found fulfilling and rewarding, but could bring in audiences and grow me a little bit." Considering he would launch the "Deadpool" trilogy just one year later — all three installments of which are among the highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time, while also all being certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes — it's clear that he has figured out that formula.