Chris Hemsworth found success in the film industry for his iconic role as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Outside of the comic book movie realm, he has only a handful of movies that were commercially and critically appreciated. His work with Netflix, Extraction, is one of them.
His other projects such as In the Heart of the Sea, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, and Men in Black: International all tanked at the box office and were severely slammed by fans and critics. This catastrophe would have entirely ruined Hemsworth’s acting career if he did not have MCU’s Thor franchise as his backup.
Michael Mann Reveals Why Chris Hemsworth’s Blackhat Flopped
Speaking with Variety, director Michael Mann talked about one of his major flop movies of the past decade, Blackhat, starring Chris Hemsworth. He admitted to knowing the project was not yet ready to be out in the world, but he still launched it.
“It’s my responsibility. The script was not ready to shoot. The subject may have been ahead of the curve because there were a number of people who thought this was all fantasy. Wrong. Everything is stone-cold accurate.”
Blackhat only earned $19.6 million worldwide against a production budget of $70 million, marking a major loss for Universal Pictures. A far cry from other roles Hemsworth did in the past, the actor portrayed a talented computer hacker who dealt with the manipulation of stock options by hackers.
The idea of the film was not entirely irrelevant during the time it was released since it was already a subject of curiosity for many, but it would have been better if it premiered a few years later. Even with Hemsworth’s star power, nothing could have saved the movie from the inevitable glitch.
Viewers struggled to get a grasp of the complex plot, and although it has a brilliant concept and heart-pumping action scenes, the tiresome, long-winded story distracted the audience.
Chris Hemsworth Shares Why He Joined Michael Mann’s Blackhat Movie Franchise
Even though Michael Mann did not get to fully polish the direction of Chris Hemsworth’s Blackhat movie, he got to revise it for the director’s cut that premiered in 2016. The filmmaker was able to remaster it for a 4K release on home media, which saw the second cut of the film finally aligning with the major plot points. Now, viewers won’t find it complicated to follow the story.
Nonetheless, the Furiosa star had no regrets about joining the ill-fated movie and claimed that the idea had fascinated him from the beginning. Hemsworth told Collider:
“I’ve grown up watching his films, and so, even before I’d read the script, I was pretty much talked into the thing. Then, I read the script, and it was a subject that I certainly hadn’t been involved in on screen. In my life, it was something that was fairly new to me. I was pretty limited in my digital-cyber involvement. It fascinated me.”
Hemsworth’s on-screen charisma and his stint as the God of Thunder have kept him on top of his game despite his many failed movie projects.
