What Happened To These Cancelled Celebs?

the producers of Freaks and Geeks had just finished up their casting process hiring very talented young actors who would go on to do amazing things in the business and one of those actors was cast because the producers like Jud AO thought he had a funny looking goofy face but then soon realized that his uh female co-workers did not think the same thing Jud APO soon realized that he had a heart throb on his hands Jud Apo had no idea that this was considered attractive but that's how it went thus is the Enigma that is James Franco he allegedly has classic leading man good looks but on the other hand he's also a Strang looking character actor and James Franco has been able to be both of those things until relatively recently for most performers building up a resume of over50 projects is something that takes an entire lifetime to achieve but for James Franco that is a feat that he has accomplished at just 45 years old this freaky geek was catapulted to Fame after appearing in one of the biggest comic book franchises of all time before settling into his role as a performer who can take on any genre and any film no matter how big or small like the guy would go back and forth between Hollywood franchise to freaky Art House Indie that nobody saw one for them one for him one for them one for him and it's a beautiful thing but with a tremendous rise it's such a young age sometimes you don't make the best decisions and for James Franco those bad decisions would come to light on the very night of his greatest professional achievement and begin a downfall that is sadly all too common in today's world but now Franco has taken a backseat as allegations against him begin to pile up so it's time we examine his career and find out just what the happened to James Franco but to truly understand what the happened to James Franco we must begin at the beginning of the beginning began when he was born on his birthday 1978 California when most people get into acting they go in head first and start auditioning immediately but James Franco knew that he wanted to study the craft before making a serious run at it and so he spent a year and a half training and taking class before he began auditioning and maybe because of this his first gig came rather quickly when he was cast in a Pizza Hut Commercial before landing guest spots on shows like Pacific Blue and profiler but it would be in 1999 when James Franco and several other prominent stars of today had his true breakout role in a series that was cancelled after airing just 12 episodes so yeah after having a supporting role and never been kissed James Franco would be cast as the bad boy in a shortlived yet cult classic TV series called Freaks and Geeks the show premiered on September 25th 1999 and received strong critical Acclaim yet only garnered around 7 million views which in today's world would be actually a genuine hit but in 1999 it was not very good despite the show's cancellation James Franco along with his castmates would be nominated for best performance in a TV series young Ensemble at the Young artist Awards but even with a failed TV series on his resume James Franco was on the verge of something big we don't often associate TNT made TV movies to be career makers but James Franco playing another actor named James would be the big break he was looking for when he was cast as James Dean in James Dean and yeah he really looks like James Dean I remember sitting there watching Spider-Man in the theaters and thinking to myself wow at certain angles this guy looks like James Dean and yeah I guess TNT thought the same when cast as James Dean James Franco took the job serious he had never smoked before but he became a two pack a day kind of guy as James Dean was while also learning to ride a motorcycle and play several instruments he even isolated himself from his family and friends saying that James Dean had this perv vasive loneliness to him that he wanted to feel that work would actually pay off when James Franco would be nominated for a screen actor's guild award and an Emy while also winning best actor in a motion picture made for TV at the 2002 Golden Globe Awards and the critic's Choice Awards too then came the year 2000 and James Franco would graduate to the world of Blockbuster films when he went into audition for the role of Peter Parker AKA spider man in a new film directed by Sam Ry although he did not land to the job as Peter Sam Ry thought James Franco was perfect to portray Peter Parker's best friend who ultimately becomes his mortal enemy Harry Osborne although there had been comic book films prior to this Spider-Man can directly be attributed to the genre becoming what it has become today I guess not only was it the first film to ever open above 100 million at the domestic box office ultimately taking in 825 million worldwide but that wasn't the only film you could see James Franco in in 2002 the guy works hard as he had roles in Deuces Wild City by the sea and a lead role in Nicholas Cage's directorial debut Sunny after appearing in the 2003 film the company James Franco would return to the world of Blockbusters for the followup Spider-Man 2 in 2004 a rare sequel that is widely regarded as superior to the original with the mainstream success of the Spider-Man films James Franco would land leading roles in films such as the Great Raid Tristan and his old Anapolis and fly boys the problem was that none of these films really hit it at the box office James Franco would then pop up in a series of small roles and cameos in such films as wicker man the dead girl the holiday An American Crime and and knocked up however Franco's biggest success or achievement although the numbers and reviews may not support that claim was when he decided to step behind the camera and make his directorial debut with the 2005 film the eight which has nothing to do with Rise of the Planet of the Apes but I like to pretend it does some critics did call this film self-indulgent and it never received a theatrical release but it did start James Franco down a path of directing which some say he has certainly gotten better as time went on back on the big screen James Franco would finally Go full villain with Spider-Man 3 when the Arc of his character was complete and become the new Green Goblin but for James Franco I just think he wasn't super comfortable in those big Blockbusters he's more of an indie kind of guy he would finish out 2007 starring opposite Tommy Lee Jones in the valley of Law and then he went and did something kind of strange but you know that's so James Franco so yeah by this time James Franco was a pretty big star so it was a bit of a shock when he decided to head back to TV but not just any TV daytime soap opera TV when he appeared in over 30 episodes of The Long running General Hospital playing a character named Franco in 2008 after appearing in the romantic comedy Camille Franco would ret team with Jud AO and Seth Rogan his Freaks and Geeks Buddies for the film Pineapple Express where he played a marijuana smoking drug dealer of marijuana this R-rated film would be a much needed success for James Franco pulling in over $100 million off a $20 million budget with James Franco being awarded the high time Stoner of the Year award as well as being nominated for a Golden Globe then James Franco would appear in the critically acclaimed film milk where he played a much younger lover to the San Francisco politician Harvey Milk played by Sha pen in this movie you get to watch Shawn pen make out with James Franco and it's not awkward at all James Franco said that it was a dream come true to work with filmmaker Gus fan an saying that he used to watch Drugstore Cowboy in my own private Idaho obsessively of course with James Franco you never really know what you're going to get and he would kick off 2010 by starring as Alan Ginsburg in the independent film Howell which would see James Franco nominated for several Awards he would follow that up with a comical turn in the film date night before starring in the little scene shadows and lies and he was even in eat prey love while directing a documentary called Saturday night about the production process of Saturday Night Live the dude is always working of course 2010 was also the year James Franco was seen in the true story 127 Hours as a guy who has to cut off his arm that's the whole movie a guy cutting off his arm but you know what it's actually freaking brilliant because of James Franco's performance and the direction of Danny Bole this would see him receive several nominations including an Academy Award for best lead actor and although he did not win the Oscar nominee James Franco would also step foot on the stage as the host of the Oscars that evening alongside an Hathaway but sadly that year a year in which James Franco gave his best performance ever in 127 Hours it wouldn't be the film that people were talking about the next day but the absolutely cringy horrible job he did hosting the show but I don't really think it was his fault he was doing his James Franco thing why would anyone hire him to do this he mixes up his output from independent character studies that go under the radar to films that grab the attention of the critics to Blockbuster films aimed at the pop corn eating crowd alongside Some solid comedies thrown in for good measure but it isn't even his name above the title that keeps him going he's happy to just show up in a cameo in his friends projects without receiving any credit as we've seen already since 201 he has had no less than two films released each year with some years seeing up to 12 projects featuring the actor whether he has a small Cameo and his former best friend Seth Rogan's green Hornet or if he's starring in the horribly misguided comedy your highness which should have been the next Pineapple Express but it wasn't cuz it's stupid and completely missed the point of everything and he did all this while also launching a very lucrative franchise reboot starring as a human in Rise of the Planet of the Apes then the next year he shows up in a film called The Iceman while playing an arms dealer who takes some unsuspecting young ladies under his wing in harmony Kareem's Spring Breakers where he was definitely trying something then he would appear on the nickit night Tel Nolla Hollywood Nights while appearing alongside Winona Rider in the letter to playing Hugh Hefner in love lace followed by reuniting with Sam Ry to play the man behind the curtain in Oz the Great and Powerful which I didn't like and and I don't think uh a lot of other people liked it too so James Franco would then again step behind the camera for As I Lay Dying before starring in one of the funniest meta movies ever where actors play themselves I guess and they do it freaking perfectly in this one this one's called This is the end where James Franco plays James Franco and he's really really good at playing James Franco whoever James Franco may be and this film This is the End shows that despite James frco being in like very very intense dramas he's also an extremely talented comedic actor as well even though I think Seth Rogan said that sometimes James Franco needs like a lot of takes but then he finally Nails it and when he Nails it it's perfect he would finish out 2013 by directing three more films Paula Alto child of God and the documentary interior leather bar while also appearing in third person and home front and of of course he got the dubious honor of being roasted by his closest friends in the Comedy Central roast of James Franco he would also receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2014 he would take a bit of a break by appearing in an episode of naked and afraid before playing himself on Veronica Mars the movie followed by starring in good people while directing and starring in the sound of Fury before almost bringing the United States to war with North Korea for the film The interview that's right a James Franco Seth Rogan film almost created an international conflict because you know movies have the power to change the world For Better or Worse 2005 would be his big year 12 movies featuring the actor were released granted most were independent and direct video releases but all showcased the range of Franco whether it was in the adaptation of Don kote to playing a man suspected of killing his family in true story alongside titles such as yosimite I am Michael Queen of the Desert everything will be fine Wild Horses the Heyday of the insensitive bastards the Aderall Diaries Memoria while voicing the fox in The Little Prince and having another hilarious Cameo as himself in the R-rated Christmas comedy the night before while also appearing in the Hulu series deadbeat Franco is a performer that never seems to slow down between 20 2016 and 2015 he appeared in no less than 28 projects including sausage party why him The Show Ken the Cohen Brothers the ballot of Buster Scruggs where he became a meme with his first time joke and the TV series Angie Tribeca while also appearing in and directing episodes of the hit miniseries the 11 2263 which was a Stephen King JFK Thriller and the deuce well also directing the films in dubious battle The Institute future world The Pretenders and zeroville of course his biggest success at that time came when he directed a film about the making of a film that has been deemed the worst movie ever made the Disaster Artist this film would bring James Franco the respect he had longed for as a director it would be a film that would be praised not just for the direction but for his Pitch Perfect portrayal of the room star Tommy wzo on January 7th 2018 James Franco would take the stage at the Beverly Hilton where the 75th annual Golden Globe awards were happening to accept his award for best actor in a comedy that night he was sporting a pin on his lapel in solidarity with the fight against sexual misconduct at the moment he took the stage James Franco was experiencing perhaps the biggest high of his entire career but what he didn't know is that at that exact moment a former co-star of his Ali shidi whom James Franco directed and appeared in a an Off Broadway play in 2014 Ali Sheidy tweeted that James Franco just won please never ask me why I left the TV film business that mysterious tweet led to James Franco admitting to texting and trying to meet up with a 17-year-old girl Franco blamed the incident on the trickiness of social media while saying he exercised bad judgment Franco would appear on The Late Show with Steven colar just 3 days after where colar asked the actor about these allegations and him wearing the pin in the face of the allegations Franco said that he had no idea what he did to Ali shidi while also saying that other allegations made against him were not accurate of course those allegations were just the beginning a month after winning the award the Los Angeles Times published a report where five women accused James Franco of exploiting his power to seduce these women into unwanted sexual encounters while he was a teacher at the playhouse West acting school and his own stage 4 school in Los Angeles where the women said that James Franco took advantage of their desire to be a part of the film industry other women alleged that James Franco would convince these young women to perform sexual acts in his films with the thought that it would help their careers in 2019 two of these women sued James Franco for sexualizing his power as a teacher and employer by dangling potential roles in his projects in their face although James Franco maintained his innocence he would reach a $2.2 million settlement in 2021 and admit that he did abuse his Power by engaging in consensual sexual encounters with his students he said that he started the school with the intention of helping students fulfill their dreams of being in Show Business and not of some sort of sick plan to sleep with women but he figured that if these sexual relationships with his students were consensual then it was okay not exactly recognizing the power dynamic between the award-winning professional actor and those young women who were are still trying to make their way in the industry and it would seem that these bad decisions made by James Franco have taken a toll on his career as you can tell Franco was the very definition of a working actor the dude was constantly working every year since his first project in 1997 James Franco had something on TV or in theaters all the freaking time this was a person who genuinely loves working in the entertainment industry and would give it 100% % whether it was a big budget summer blockbuster roll or a soap opera and since winning that Golden Globe and the allegations against him he has appeared on several podcasts where he talks about his addiction issues to both alcohol and sex Franco actually does have a few films in the pipeline including a film where he plays Fidel Castro but the real question is will James Franco ever get back to where he once was it seems even James Franco's closest friends have not stuck by him during this time when Seth Rogan said that he has no plans to ever work with James Franco again but in a world where people like Louis CK can continue to sell out their live performances it seems like talented people can have resurrections in their career it seems like being cancelled isn't exactly uh final and fatal all the time so yeah like the cancelling of Freaks and Geeks James Franco may very well come back and James Franco he seems to genuinely show remorse for his actions I guess or he's a really good actor but you know get that misou fire conundrum there but yeah the dude has proven to be an immense talent and it's not Unthinkable that we will see James Franco in the Limelight again just as long as he never hosts the Oscars please so yeah that's what the happened to James Franco uh he's not exactly doing fine but uh yeah in Hollywood it only takes one roll to turn you into an icon and it only takes one moment to take it all away long before cancel culture was a phrase one iconic celebrity had a meltdown of Epic Proportions as many television stars have found out like after a hugely successful show can be quite tough for some and it was for the cast of Seinfeld for a while with Julia louus winning countless emies Jason Alexander returning to his stage roots and Jerry Seinfeld continuing his legendary standup career but it's time we find out what the happened to the other member of Seinfeld's iconic cast yep we're doing it what the happened to Michael Richards you know Kramer every time I see this backdrop I think about Kramer [ __ ] up but to truly understand what the happened to Michael Richards we must begin at the beginning of the beginning began when he was born on his birthday 1949 California of course little Kramer was the class clown experimenting early in the classroom with physical comedy flopping his body all over the place to make all the little kids laugh he instantly knew he had a talent even using that Talent when he joined the army performing in an army theater group and in 1979 Michael Richards would join the standup circuit you know standing up on a stage and telling jokes into a microphone Michael Richard's career would take off when he was cast on ABC's answer to Saturday Night Live called Fridays in 1980 although the show was shortlived airing for just three seasons Michael Richards was part of one of the most famous moments of that Series so much so that it was recreated in the 1999 Milo foran Jim Carrey movie Man on the Moon with the late great Norm McDonald playing Michael Richards the scene involved guest star Andy Kaufman refusing to deliver his scripted lines which led Richards to stand up and get the Q cards which led to a small Outburst with Kaufman throwing his drink in Richard's [Applause] face of course much like most of Andy Kaufman's genius bits Richards would later claim that he was in on the joke from the start which I honestly for a second thought his racist Outburst was I was like oh he's doing an Andy Kaufman thing oh no he he's not and funny enough it was Norm McDonald who had one of the most interesting takes on the public meltdown of Michael Richards let's listen to that now he was out of his head element He didn't know what to do yeah but there's no way that a guy who's racist screams it at the top of his lungs you know what I mean well certainly certainly I don't think he was anticipating the fact that a cell phone could have been putting this onto CNN as he was saying it you know I think he right he wouldn't do it on uh the Craig Ferguson show right maybe on here though we could maybe to get him on here to recreate that rant okay let's go back to the80s with Michael Richard star slowly rising in the comedy scene he would be a steady character actor in several films including the spoof film young doctors in love in 1982 there was also the movie The House of God 1984's the ratings game and Transylvania 65,000 Transylvania 65000 while also turning in solid guest spots on shows like Night Court St Elsewhere cheers Hill Street Blues Miami Vice and Fresno the overarching theme of much of Michael Richards work his art at this time was to parody television cliches so it was no surprise when he was cast in the cult classic Weird Al Yankovic film UHF Weird Al actually wrote the role of the janitor who loves his mop specifically for Michael Richards because Weird Al is a hugee fan of Michael Richard's standup comedy and loved him on the show Fridays and if Weird Al thinks you're funny then that means you're funny and at first Michael Richards had to turn down the role because at the moment he was suffering from Belle's paly and his face was paralyzed but luckily Michael Richards quickly recovered and blew everyone away when he went to test read for the film UHF and when that movie UHF hit theaters in 1989 it was ultimately a fin Financial disappointment getting lost in a crowded summer field of Blockbusters and it was only able to make $6.1 million off a $5 million budget but after years after decades UHF was eventually looked at as a comedy [Applause] [Music] classic a few weeks before the launch of UHF and theaters a TV series featuring Michael Richards launched on NBC to severely low ratings NBC actually offered this failing series to Fox who declined to pick it up which I'm sure was a decision Fox would soon regret as that low-rated series was titled the Seinfeld Chronicles which would later be simply retitled to Seinfeld and go on to become one of the biggest shows ever created the series Seinfeld featured several crazy Kookie supporting characters but the craziest the kookiest of them all was part of the core 4 Jerry's eccentric neighbor Cosmo Kramer played to Absolute comedic Perfection by Michael Richards who was reluctantly brought on to the show by his Friday's Co coar Larry David after Jerry Seinfeld insisted on him for the part Larry David was like No And Jerry Seinfeld was like come on and lar David was like okay and Jerry was like good and Larry David was like good and Michael Richards was like but yeah with the use of his outrageous physical comedy Kramer quickly became the standout character of this series with the audience exploding with Applause every time Richard would burst into Jerry's apartment with his iconic entrance that actually looks really dangerous like what if somebody standing right there he would have just hit them this character was perfect for all the talents and skills that Michael Richards has he was able to enter any scene and completely take control or tear it into pieces either way it was beautiful to witness he was more than just a silly clown who fell down the dude was an Absolute Comedy Wrecking Ball and nobody was [Applause] safe throughout his nine seasons on the show Richards would be nominated for five Emy awards for the supporting actor category winning the honor three times more than any other cast member of the series with an additional five nominations at the Screen Actors Guild Awards winning that award twice as part of the ensemble cast but Seinfeld wasn't the only place that you could catch Michael Richards on the boob tube he would pop up as a voice on dinosaurs and would appear as Kramer on an episode of mad about you while appearing as himself Michael Richards on the Larry Sanders show and he would team up with Elaine again Julia Lou dfus in the TV movie adaptation of Neil Simon's London Suite while he became a television icon you could also see him on the big screen bringing his eccentric energy to a variety of roles like the bad guy and Problem Child the motel Clerk and con heads an insensitive man and So I Married an Axe Murderer and a cowardly accountant who finds himself in a dieh hard situation in Airheads however in 199 95 Michael Richards would Garner some Acclaim with his paranoid performance in the Diane Keaton directed unstrung Heroes where he would be nominated for the funniest supporting actor at the American Comedy Awards oh don't you worry you're going to figure a way remember you're the one to watch I'm not yes you are you're the one to watch that Acclaim would continue when he voiced The Wolf and the Academy Award nominated short film Redux writing Hood after which he would get his chance to co-headline a big Studio comedy when he starred opposite Jeff Daniels and chariss ston in trial by error it didn't really do that well at the box office but luckily Richards still had Seinfeld I mean we all do that you know all keep a little bit of ourselves hidden then on May 14th 1998 the ser series finale of Seinfeld aired to Historic numbers with 76.3 million viewers accounting for nearly 60% of all television Watchers that night the series finale of Seinfeld became the fourth highest watched series finale in television history behind the finales of mash cheers and The Fugitive of course the finale polarized viewers with some calling it The the worst of all time but I kind of understand what they were going for bringing back all the iconic characters for the finale was a stroke of Genius but it was just a stroke that was moked it didn't really work and yeah a spoiler alert for Seinfeld but yeah maybe having your characters all end up in prison at the end of the series isn't the the best way to end Seinfeld I don't know I like it more than most people but it ain't great but all the other episodes are great you just cost me some money cool it lady police officers right there so then came the question what are these now legendary performers going to do well for Richards he would take on the role of Wilkins in the TNT broadcast of Charles Dickens David Copperfield before launching his own series The Michael Richard show and you would think a show called The Michael Richards Show would be about Michael Richards but no Michael Richards does not play Michael Richards in the Michael Richard show he's playing a private detective character named Vic Narda he conceived of the show because he wanted to play a different type of character than you know Kramer but when test audiences didn't respond to the character the studio made him make the character more like Kramer adding more wild and crazy Kramer esque characteristics but bad reviews and low viewership saw the show canceled after just Eight Episodes this led to the creation of the phrase the sefel curse wait wait wait and and then on November 17th 2006 what Richards had spent over 40 years cultivating a career in the entertainment industry was essentially ruined in seconds for Mr Michael Richards it was a night he had done for over 25 years you know get on the stage tell some jokes for comedy fans it was a chance to see an iconic TV actor in a different setting than they were used to up close and personal on a stage with a microphone but what happened has gone down in infamy as the biggest implosion of a career ever nowadays in this post # me to iPhone era we're kind of used to seeing bigname people having their entire careers destroyed because of horrible Behavior caught on a cell phone video or a tweet but for Michael Richards one horrible Outburst that attempted to push the boundaries of Comedy to a level past sanity and decency it began when a group of patrons whose skin just so happens to be black entered the famed Laugh Factory club in Hollywood and interrupted Michael Richard set by being loud and heckling the comedian a comedian who again just happens to be white Michael Richards then launched into the most vile of rants ever caught on camera at first the audience seems to think that Michael Richards is joking playing a character but then he screams out a racial slur which racial slur you ask well it's the one that uh the the the one that starts with N the one that they call the nword you know that one and after shouting screaming that particular horrible word that starts with an N over and over in a very aggressive manner the entire crowd turned on him and his entire career was flushed down the toilet days later in an attempt at damage control Michael Richards appeared via satellite on The Late Show with David Letterman when Letterman's guest just so happened to be Jerry Seinfeld Richards desperately tried to explain his outburst and he did his best to apologize I guess the whole situation was just so awkward that many in the audience could do nothing but laugh which is kind of funny that he got more laugh with his apology than his standup haha Letterman's studio audience was laughing so much that Seinfeld had to jump in and tell them to stop laughing can you imagine a comedian telling people to not laugh uh said some very um nasty things to some Afro Americans stop laughing it's not funny but yeah by the way let's talk about the type of insanely great friend Jerry Seinfeld is not only did he stand up for his friend when most people would not he gave up part of his time on a national talk show so that his friend could address what the f happened and Jerry Seinfeld would stand by his friend even further when he would cast him in the animated film B movie and would even feature him on an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee where these comedians they got in cars and they got coffee and they would discuss the incident and its ramifications even further Michael Richards would stay out of the Limelight for a while instantly retiring from standup after the incident opting to live a quiet life away from show business right I should have been working selflessly that evening most of the time when I'm in that zone I am selfless right but he would return with the rest of the cast of Seinfeld for three episodes of the seventh season of the Larry David show Curb Your Enthusiasm where the cast reunites to do a reunion show of the classic sitcom and instead of tiptoeing around it Michael Richards and the writers hit the controversy right on the head with several references to the notorious Laugh Factory incident and you know what this Curb Your Enthusiasm appearance well it actually did a lot to help repair his reputation and just shows that comedy when done right can almost fix anything and no this wasn't completely fixed but you know what what the ever happened to forgiveness we all mess up maybe not that fuing bad but you know being able to make fun of it and be the butt of the joke I think it helped everyone move past the incident kind of maybe not everyone it helped some people I don't know I don't know anything curve whatever I say with enthusiasm no no no if only there were a a horrible name that I could call you that would make you as angry as I am what oh you on TV Michael Richards would make a shortlived comeback kind of when he appeared in the main cast of the TV Land series Kirsty opposite fellow television Legends kiry Aly and Ria Pearlman sadly the show would only last one season before being cancelled but not by cancel Culture by like ratings in 2013 Michael Richards would again earn Stellar reviews for his performance in the short film walk the light where he would win best supporting actor at the Los Angeles Cinema Festival while in 2019 he would appear in a faith-based film called faith hope and love that I've never heard of but I have faith and I have hope that you'll love it yeah we got a saying in the South oh you're from the south what part Detroit Michigan Michael Richards has kept out of the spotlight for the most part which is probably for the best but the good news I guess is because of his iconic role as Kramer in one of the biggest shows ever created Richards doesn't really have to work again unless he had like a horrible contract but yeah that Seinfeld money it's going to keep him set for the rest of his life and several Generations thereafter if he's smart with it but it is a horrendous shame that he lost his temper on that one fateful day because Michael Richards is one of the best physical comedians around he's like Charlie Chaplan mixed with Chevy Chase and like a mongoose and when he's had a chance he's actually showed us that he's a great actor it's been a few years since Michael Richards has been a part of a project but maybe it's time for Michael Richard's comeback I don't know what the do you think but you know what it's it's okay to give a about what the happened to Michael Richards because you know what there's a lesson in there and I guess that lesson is uh don't say racist things WTF Once Upon a Time being a nerd was looked at as a negative thing with depictions of them being scrawny losers with glasses and high pitched voices oh my God but then something happened and geek culture became mainstream culture and the masterminds who brought us all of this geek content were the ones who felt so alienated by their seemingly uncool passions yes Once Upon a Time superheroes weren't cool enter Jos Weeden who used his childhood isolations to craft some of the biggest cult TV shows ever and write up many groundbreaking screenplays everything from sci-fi to horror to action adventure to animation to Shakespeare and some of the biggest superhero flicks ever made he was everybody's favorite geek or nerd or whatever you call them but behind closed doors there seemed to be a different tale a story of a man so consumed with ego that he made everyone else tremble in Terror around him it would seem that Jos Weeden was not the hero we thought he was but the villain we weren't expecting how did a man so respected in the industry have a fall from Grace on par with some of the comic book characters that he wrote about it's time we find out just what the [ __ ] happened to Jos Weeden oh God damn it blah blah blah there now you got the now you got the behind the scenes behind the scenes ugliness but to truly understand what the f happened to Jos Weeden we must begin at the beginning and the beginning began when he was born on his birthday the upper west side of New York City as Joseph before changing his name to Jos because Jos is Chinese for luck apparently and he was lucky enough to land a staff writing gig on the hit ABC series Roseanne where he wrote four episodes for the second season before switching over to the show Parenthood based off of the hit film however this one was not the popular Parenthood that aired in 2010 but rather the failed Parenthood that only lasted a single season and I think it starred a little Leonardo DiCaprio tell me something about women I mean about them being naked during this time Jos would write a spec script about a teenage girl named Buffy who slays vampires called Buffy the Vampire Slayer unfortunately Studio Executives took the script that Weeden wrote and slayed it in a bad way not in like a Beyonce way removing a lot of humor and dark elements from the plot you know the two elements that make Buffy the Vampire Slayer work the comedy and the horror the result of removing a lot of comedy and horror from The Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie was that it pulled in just $16.6 million at the box office with critics saying that it was a giant lit down but no one was more lit down than Jos Weeden himself who saw his first attempt at theatrical success go down in flames through no fault of his own the failure of The Buffy movie would be something that would eat him up for years until eventually he would be able to write that wrong in the meantime Weeden would make a name for himself as a ghost riter this is essentially some someone who takes a script and does uncredited rewrites polishes them up a bit makes them better or worse depending on the ghost from 1994 until the year 2000 you would be watching films such as the getaway speed the quick and the dead Water World twister and X-Men without knowing that some of what you were enjoying came from the mind of Jos Weeden in 1995 Weeden would land his first and to dat only Academy Award nomination as one of the writers on the groundbreaking Pixar film Toy Story the script had been in development for several years but it just did not have that wow factor so Pixar sought out Weeden to punch it up a bit which he did by adding the character of Rex and giving a more substantial role to Bo Peep as well as changing Buzz Lightyear from a dimwitted self-aware character to an action figure that doesn't know he's a toy which is like the best part of Toy Story why look an alien where in 1997 20th Century Fox would hire Jos Weeden to write a new film in the alien franchise at the time sorney Weaver was not expected to return for a fourth film as her character had spoiler alert died at the end of Alien 3 so Jos wrote a screenplay that took place on Earth that featured a clone of the aliens character no however those pesky Studio Executives soon pivoted to wanting to bring back Sigourney Weaver and told Jos Weeden to come up with a new story that featured the resurrection of Ripley so he did he kept the the cloning idea that he had for n and just assigned it to Ripley and when Sigourney Weaver read the script she was intrigued saying that she thought that the script brought back the spirit of the first two films so she immediately signed on to Alien Resurrection which is not very good it like completely falls apart in the third act and gets like freaking ridiculous but there's a lot of stuff in it that is pretty good and a okay with two interesting scripts produced into films he didn't enjoy Jos Weeden was losing faith in the entertainment industry and the Art of Cinema but then Dolly Parton's sand dollar Studios called him and told him that they loved the original script for Buffy the movie that he originally had submitted that they completely changed and the studio asked him to film a short pitch video for executives at Warner Brothers television this idea kind of intimidated Jos as he had never directed anything before but he loved the idea of actually being able to get what he had originally envisioned on film Warner Brothers picked up the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer giving it a relatively small budget at as at the time the WB Network was struggling which just meant that Jos Sweden had to rely more on storytelling rather than expensive special effects which he did by digging into his youth where he felt like an outsider at school because he was a nerd during the course of The Buffy the Vampire Slayer show Jos Weeden would be nominated for several Awards including an Emy for outstanding writing for a drama series and a Bram Stoker award for best screenplay for the episode [Music] hush Jos Weeden would then successfully spin off the series with Angel and that ran for Five Seasons Angel was considered a more dark show darker stuff the show was unceremoniously cancelled after season 5 which caught Jos Weeden off guard as he thought that after 100 episodes the show was really coming into its [Music] own in movie theaters Jos Sweden would head back to where he had his most success animation by pinning the script for the fox animated Studio film Titan AE that unfortunately tanked at the box office with just $ 36.8 million off a reported $100 million budget back to TV Weeden would would solidify his geek God status by creating the space Western Firefly which despite garnering a very dedicated fan base only ran for a single season with just 14 episodes produced but because of those 14 episodes TV Guide would rank the show at number five on their list of 60 shows that were cancelled too soon Josh Sweden developed the show after reading the book the killer angels which is about the Battle of Gettysburg and became fascinated by telling a story about people who fought on the losing side of a war but he put it in [Music] space despite the cancellation of firefly Jos immediately started writing a film script for the series and contacted anyone he could about making it luckily Universal saw potential mainly due to the Stellar DVD sales of the series and in 2005 Jos would make his feature directorial debut with Serenity which unfortunately showed that the vocal fan base was not the majority when the film Serenity failed at the box office with releases in several countries scrapped in favor of a direct to DVD release but there was some light at the end of that tunnel as sfx magazine named this the best science fiction film of all time while Empire magazine would rank it as number 386 on its list of 500 of the greatest movies of all time after these perceived failures Jos Sweden took a bit of a break but he would take on some guest directing gigs on show such as the office and Glee but would step back into the world of sci-fi television by creating another shortlived but now cult classic dollhouse which would only air for two seasons before being cancelled cancelled like Jos Weeden is now dollhouse starts Tuesday June 9 after Top Model after making the creative arts Emy winning Dr horri singalong blog Weeden would make his way back to the big screen by co-writing the horror comedy Cabin in the Woods in 2012 which is one of the best horror films in the last like 15 years in my most humble of opinions and my opinions are always humble the screenplay is reported to have been written in just 3 days and yeah C in the woods it really is like the perfect Jos Weeden screenplay totally got his sty style all over it it infuses those sci-fi horror tropes with genuine Laugh Out Loud Comedy LOL while also making fun of satirizing the very genre they're making I went into Cabin in the Woods not knowing anything about it I was just like oh okay this is a generic uh Cabin in the Woods horror movie okay I I hope it's fun and then bam what oh this is is not what I thought at all this is like amazing this is like really creative and uh different and yeah after Cabin in the Woods you can't really look at a horror movie the same way again but the biggest turn for Jos Sweden was waiting just around the corner Marvel Studios had built up an increasingly successful arsenal of films starting with 2008's Iron Man which teased some sort of a Avengers Initiative in the post-credit scene but who could direct such a massive Endeavor that would bring together all of the biggest superheroes of the moment for an epic mashup this sounds like a job for Jos who of course grew up reading these comic books and had earned his stripes writing for Marvel Comics over the years actually so yeah and you have to remember at the time for some reason everybody thought that you could only have like one superhero in a movie there's no way you could fit a Captain America Iron Man Hulk Black Widow Hawkeye Thor the whole bunch there's no way you could squeeze all of them into a movie and have it be good that's what we thought for some reason and Josh made The Avengers movie and proved that it is possible now every superhero movie has like 12 superheroes in it [Applause] Weeden was announced as the Director in July 2010 after receiving the script written by Zack Pinn Jos told Kevin feige that he was not impressed with the original draft of the screenplay and that they had absolutely nothing so he decided to do a page one rewrite the Avengers would be released on May 4th 2012 and break nearly every record at the time including the highest grossing opening weekend ever at the time with 27.4 million buckaroos at the box office which really does owe a lot to weeden's writing which you can feel in every joke and like yeah every joke is is kind of funny yeah it's good A lot of the Marvel movies have stale humor every now and then but Jos Sweden's Avengers script has several scenes where you genuinely laugh out loud loling you know like when Hulk punches Thor and when Tony Stark says anything or the entire post credit scene where the Avengers just sit there all broken and beaten from Battle enjoying some schwarma which was a last minute idea that Jos Weeden had on a whim during post production he had to bring back all the actors just to sit there but it was worth it wheen could then take a few smaller passion projects in the wake of the Avengers massive success including the modernday retelling of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and writing the script for the Paranormal romance film in your eyes that critics said featured an ingenious screenplay by Joss but soon Weeden would jump back into the world of the Avengers with its sequel Avengers Age of Ultron which was another massive hit grabbing over 1.4 billion dollars worldwide at the B box office Weeden would then help launch the Marvel series Agents of Shield riding and directing the pilot episode but it would seem his time with Marvel was soon wrapping up so what do you do after you leave Marvel well you go over to DC because at the time DC was putting together together their own superhero mashup a movie titled Justice League it's about the Justice League the film's director was Zach Snider and this Justice League movie that Zach was making was very dark this reportedly did not sit well with those Warner Brothers and their sister dot who thought that Zack Snyder's first two films were too dark and lacked that fine aspect of those Marvel movies not the dark and depressing DC movies but sadly during production Zack Snider suffered an unimaginable family tragedy that forced him to leave the still shooting project so here comes Jos Weeden again who had written a Wonder Woman script for the company that never got made to do some punch-ups to the script and lighten the tone a lot so yeah when Zack Snider unfortunately left the film this Studio then asked Jos Sweden to step into the director's seat to finish shooting the movie and according to manyi Jos Sweden came in and did an almost complete page one rewrite while the film's original writer Academy Award winner Chris Tero called the theatrical cut of Justice League an act of vandalism and tried unsuccessfully to get his name removed from the movie right ain't over yet my man and this is where the decline of Jos Sweden began for many people in the industry it was a well-known secret that Jos Sweden was a bully it seemed that the first huge public blow came in November 2017 where his ex-wife wrote A Blog calling Jos Sweden a hypocrite who preached feminist ideals yet called him out on all of his secret Affairs he had over the years from there the floodgates seemed to open with many going back through his work and finding problems with the way he sexualized and marginalized his female characters even though at the time everybody praised him as a feminist icon or whatever but then more damning allegations came in 2020 when the actor who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer said that Jos Weeden once pushed him up against a wall and told him that he was dead after his character exploded in popularity a few years later cyborg actor Ray fiser would accuse Weeden of abusive behavior on the set of Justice League booah more and more people would come out and detail the abuse they suffered at the hands of Jos Weeden Jos reportedly forced a stunt double to leave The Buffy series after he told her to stop dating the stunt coordinator while Charisma Carpenter who played Cordelia on Buffy and Angel detailed the cruel abuse she suffered at the hands of Jos saying that he would constantly insult her in front of the cast and crew and always threatened to fire her Carpenter's co-stars including Sarah Michelle Geller all publicly supported Carpenter with Sarah Michelle Geller even saying that she is forever grateful to be associated with the name Buffy but she does not want her name to be forever associated with Jos and it was Geller's comment that gave her co-star Michelle tractenberg the courage to come forward saying that on the set of Buffy there was a rule that Weeden was not allowed to ever be alone with her she started the show when she was 14 while many kept their silence the allegations against Weeden kept mounting until many could not hold their silence any longer gal gdat who played Wonder Woman confirmed a report that Jos Sweden had threatened her career while Ben Affleck has gone on record saying that making Justice League was the worst experience of his professional life but then the unexpected the unimaginable happened HBO lit Zack Snyder go back and make his version of Justice League before Jos came and Jos it all up and it was pretty dang unanimous that Zach's cut was far superior than js's Justice League Weeden try to clear his name in a New York Magazine profile in 2020 titled the undoing of Jos Weeden that many believe was the final nail in the coffin of his career in this article confession he tries very hard to frame his professional career in a way that makes him out to be a passionate hero but all he really does is confirm everything that everyone has said about him he doesn't seem to actually take accountability for the misery he put so many people through it all came off as a bit self-righteous and it would seem that it did take a toll on his career because since 2017's Justice League Jos Weeden has only had one project in development the HBO series The Nevers with HBO simply saying that they mutually parted ways with Jos Weeden but for now it seems like Jos Weeden is playing the lelow game Hollywood is a town of forgiveness well it used to be and the allegations against him aren't at that Harvey winstein Bill Cosby level so it may very well be possible that with time and a massive dose of humility and hubris that we could see Josh Sweden return to the world of crafting characters that form massive followings but yeah forgiveness is something that must be earned so yeah only time will tell but in the meantime I will still enjoy and remember all the wonderful stories and characters that he brought to life but not his version of Justice League so you can give a [ __ ] if you want to give a [ __ ] about what the happened to Jos Weeden because there's a lesson in their [Music] somewhere [Music] a

Channel: JoBlo Originals

Views: 82,059

Keywords: joblo videos, joblo, wtf happened to, wtf happened to this celebrity, wtf happened to this movie, wtf, the best movie you never saw, awfully good movies, joblo originals, movie review, review, cancelled celebrities, cancel culture, celebrity scandals, cancelled celebs, actors who ruined their careers, celebs who ruined their careers, james franco, joss whedon, micahel richards, actors ruined, actor ruined, celeb scandals, where are they now

Id: 6v3n58I0AA8

Length: 66min 27sec (3987 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 16 2024