Why Is John Travolta Blacklisted From Hollywood

American actor John Travolta is a perplexing mix bag in Hollywood. When looking at his roles throughout his career, which he began gaining attention for in the 1970s, Travolta has some serious hits and misses.

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The hits include the classic horror gem Carrie, where he played school bully Billy, and the ’80s thriller Blow Out, which has a truly chilling ending. Travolta’s other iconic and acclaimed roles include Danny in the hit musical Grease and Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. He also earned praise for Hairspray, where he played Edna in drag whilst performing musical numbers.

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However, when Travolta misses, he misses hard. His other works, such as Look Who’s Talking Now and Staying Alive, did not go down well with critics and audiences. Gotti also earned him some panning reviews. However, one film that’s argued to have actually compromised the actor’s career as a whole is a science-fiction film directed by Roger Christian.

Battlefield Earth was released in 2000 and was written by Corey Mandell, who based the script on the 1982 novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The film follows a rebellion against the alien Psychlos, who have ruled Earth for 1,000 years.

The film was somewhat of a passion project for Scientologist Travolta, who had been trying to get it off the ground since the mid-’90s. The actor even stated, “I have a special affection for this book”.

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However, to his disappointment, the film was an utter disaster. After some scathing critical and commercial failures, Battlefield Earth is now frequently described as one of the worst films of all time. The criticism is directed towards virtually everything; the acting, direction, lack of originality, cinematography, screenplay, special effects, musical score, lack of character development, art direction, and plot holes. It essentially failed at everything a film should have.

There were reports that audiences ridiculed the film during initial screenings and advised others to just miss it once it was officially released. There was salt in the wound when the film received eight Golden Raspberry Awards, which until 2012 was the most Razzie Awards given to a single film, and in 2010, it won Worst Picture of the Decade.

On Rotten Tomatoes, Battlefield Earth has an embarrassing 3% approval rating. This doesn’t align with the vision of the L. Ron Hubbard adaptation that cost a whopping $73 million to make. It returned less than $30 million, and another failed investment was attributed to Travolta.

Film fans claim this catastrophic failure, which left the studio bankrupt, is why Travolta’s career is slowly declining to borderline nothing. His career’s end was decided by Travolta after his wife Kelly Preston’s tragic passing in 2020, with the actor putting forth the statement, “I will be taking some time to be there for my children who have lost their mother, so forgive me in advance if you don’t hear from us for a while.”

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Regardless of who decided where Travolta’s acting career was going to end up, Battlefield Earth definitely had a say in the matter.