The Star-Studded Musical Alec Baldwin Regrets Filming
Alec Baldwin has had a prolific acting career littered with several highly acclaimed roles. During his career, he's won seven Screen Actors Guild awards, three Emmys, and three Golden Globe Awards – on top of his dozens of nominations across the entertainment industry. With all of these notches on his "win" belt, it's easy to assume that he's never starred in a dud of a film. But if you think that, you might not be all that familiar with how showbusiness works.
Every actor, no matter how famous, has been involved in a project that flopped — critically, commercially, or both. Some (if not most) do it for the money. Some do it because they fall in love with a passion project, but the end result fails to live up to expectations. Others, like Baldwin in this case, hop on board because they want to work with someone they're friends with. Although he had his concerns while filming, Baldwin politely waited until a little over a year after its release in order to voice his opinion on the failed musical, according to Vanity Fair. And his opinion was scathing.
Baldwin has nothing good to say about Rock of Ages
The 2012 musical "Rock of Ages" had a lot of good things going for it on paper. It had a $70 million production budget, was being directed by Adam Shankman, and featured a star-studded cast that included Tom Cruise, Russell Brand, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bryan Cranston, and Paul Giamatti starring alongside Baldwin. But as the actor pointed out in an interview in 2013, things didn't exactly go according to plan (via The Wrap).
Baldwin thought the movie had potential due to Shankman's involvement, according to the interview. In fact, that particular selling point was the linchpin that convinced him to get involved. But he noted that a week into production he was asking himself "Oh god, what have I done?", adding that it was a "complete disaster" and asked — futilely — for the studio to replace him. Baldwin's instincts were right: The film earned just $38 million (via The Numbers), just barely more than half of its production budget, and holds a 43% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes. Odds are there's probably a cult following for this movie somewhere out there — but Alec Baldwin is definitely not a member of that fandom.