Jack Black Almost Lost His Career After This Massive Box Office Bomb

by

The “Minecraft” film represents the largest live-action production in Jack Black‘s career, but it’s not his solitary significant success over the past decade. While Black’s acting resume stretches back to 1992, he didn’t achieve his first $300+ million domestic box office gross until 2017 with “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”. Since then, Black has been a box office sensation not just due to the “Jumanji” sequel, but also through principal voice roles in “Kung Fu Panda 4” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”. These films join earlier financial successes like “King Kong” and “School of Rock”, which established Black as a unique box office attraction.

After becoming a viral sensation on social media platforms like TikTok due to his words in “A Minecraft Movie“, it’s understandable that one might overlook the fact that his successful acting career had almost been halted by a 2010 box office failure. That disastrous project, which was the Christmas family film “Gulliver’s Travels“, came close to sinking his promising cinematic journey.

What On Earth Happened With Gulliver’s Travels?

From the year 2000 onwards, Black found himself in a continuous string of significant films in the 2000s, starting with “High Fidelity”. “Gulliver’s Travels”, much like earlier movies featuring Black such as “School of Rock” and “Year One”, appeared to be another vehicle for him. 20th Century Fox also anticipated that “Gulliver’s Travels” might replicate the success of their VFX-heavy Christmas family movie, “Night at the Museum”. However, this adaptation of the 1726 Jonathan Swift text seemed peculiar even before its release. Trailer previews for this modern take on 18th-century literature left audiences bewildered as they highlighted unconventional or futuristic aspects like a miniaturized Kiss band or a robotic foe for Black to battle against.

Although poor reviews didn’t bode well for the success of “Gulliver’s Travels,” it was a fierce family movie competition in December 2010 that ultimately led to its disappointing performance at the box office. Films like “Yogi Bear” and “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” were all vying for the same dollars from families during this month. To make matters worse, the popular Thanksgiving 2010 blockbuster “Tangled” was still running in theaters, captivating audiences. Furthermore, compared to movies with more appealing initial concepts such as “Night at the Museum” or previous hits like “Nacho Libre,” “Gulliver’s Travels” didn’t have a particularly compelling starting premise. People can easily relate to being fascinated by museum exhibits, and underdog stories like “Libre” are highly engaging.

The movie adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels, starring Jack Black, had him playing a tall, dishonest character among tiny people – not the kind of story audiences usually look for in a holiday family film. Unfortunately, this resulted in poor box office performance with only $42.77 million earned domestically. This was much lower than most other Jack Black-led films during that decade. Previous movies like Shallow Hal and Year One, however, had significantly lower production costs compared to the $112 million budget of Gulliver’s Travels. Despite earning an additional $232 million overseas, it wasn’t enough to save this film from being a flop. In essence, it was a box office bomb.

How Did The Gulliver’s Fallout Impact Black’s Career?

After the release of “Gulliver’s Travels”, Jack Black’s sole leading role in a significant studio production was “The Big Year”. This film had already wrapped up principal photography before “Gulliver’s” came out. He reprised his role as Po in “Kung Fu Panda 2” and made a memorable appearance in “The Muppets”. However, most of his work shifted towards independent films, where he was the main star in movies like “The D Train” and gave an applauded performance in “Bernie” of 2012. He also appeared in ten episodes of the HBO comedy series “The Brink”, which unfortunately lasted only one season. When Jack Black returned to major studio family films with “Goosebumps”, his roles seemed more carefully planned out.

In a change for the better, Black’s film roles were now based on more contemporary source materials instead of stories from centuries ago. For instance, “Goosebumps” was a popular book series in the 1990s, while “The House with a Clock in its Walls” was adapted from a book published in 1973. The latest iterations of “Jumanji” were expansions on a well-known 1990s children’s movie. Interestingly, Black was part of an ensemble cast in these modern projects, meaning that if one of them didn’t succeed as expected, he wouldn’t bear the brunt of the blame like with “Gulliver’s Travels.

This method not only provided a consistent income at the box office for Jack Black’s film career but also presented opportunities to exhibit his acting skills in diverse roles. For example, his performance in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle might never have happened if he had stuck to leading man parts. At one point, Gulliver’s Travels seemed like it could mark the end of Jack Black’s career in major studio productions. However, its underperformance prompted him to explore new creative paths, leading to his most financially successful films yet. The success of The Minecraft Movie has already more than made up for any negative impact on box office earnings from Gulliver’s Travels.

A Minecraft Movie is now playing in theaters, and Gulliver’s Travels is now streaming on Disney+.

Read More

2025-04-12 18:12