John Goodman has named the two films he wishes he had skipped.
The 72-year-old actor singled out “Blues Brothers 2000” and “The Monuments Men” during a SAG-AFTRA Foundation conversation in New York City on Oct. 5, telling the audience that both projects fell into the category of movies he “probably shouldn’t have done.”
Goodman traced the regret back to his experience on George Clooney’s 2014 World War II ensemble piece. “We were over in Germany for what, six months. In England,” he recalled of the shoot. “The thing is, it’s one of those movies that was like the ‘Blues Brothers 2000,’ I probably shouldn’t have done.”
Despite the misgivings, Goodman spoke warmly of his time on set. “George’s movie, I had one of the best times I’ve ever had on a film,” he gushed. The “Roseanne” alum even joked that the lesson he took away was that making a movie “should never be fun.”
Goodman’s fun-first philosophy apparently extended to the 1998 sequel as well. Although “Blues Brothers 2000” flopped at the box office, he said he enjoyed the work so much that the financial failure hardly bothered him.
The actor’s candor comes as his latest project, “Digger,” struggles to find its footing. The Alejandro González Iñárritu satire, which opened in theaters just three days before the SAG-AFTRA event, pulled in only $8 million in North America. In the film, Goodman plays the president of the United States opposite Tom Cruise’s oil baron villain in a climate-change comedy.
Goodman has grown philosophical about commercial performance. “Everything is too critical now. I mean, not in criticism, but the way you release,” he said during the conversation. “It’s got to be a hit on the first weekend or it’s considered a dud. I think ‘Argo’ may be the only hit film I had. ‘The Artist,’ maybe. But yeah, none of my films open well.”
The box office numbers tell a mixed story about Goodman’s two regrets. “The Monuments Men,” which cast Goodman alongside Matt Damon, Bill Murray, and Cate Blanchett as Allied soldiers racing to recover Nazi-looted art, grossed $156.7 million worldwide — hardly nothing, though Goodman characterized it that way. “Blues Brothers 2000,” the belated follow-up to Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s 1980 musical hit, fared far worse with just $14 million in North America when it landed in theaters 16 years after the original.
Goodman joined Aykroyd for the sequel, stepping into a project that Belushi’s 1982 death had long left dormant. The original “The Blues Brothers” became a cult classic on the strength of its R&B performances and car-chase destruction, but the 1998 retread failed to recapture either the chemistry or the audience.
The Oct. 5 remarks mark a rare moment of public second-guessing from Goodman, whose four-decade career has spanned the Coen brothers’ filmography, the “Monsters, Inc.” franchise, and his Emmy-winning run as Dan Conner on “Roseanne” and its revival “The Conners.”
Goodman will next appear in “Digger” as it continues its theatrical run.
