John Travolta managed to keep a career from the late 70s to the early 90s, which of course it’s respectable on its own.
But the star that seems to be able to do all parts, from crazy musical hits like “Grease” or “Saturday Night Fever” to critically acclaimed movies like “Pulp Fiction” and big blockbusters like “Face/Off”, but then he started to make some strange career choices that brought him down.
Battlefield Earth. As a long time disciple of Scientology, Travolta had harbored ambitions to bring the late science fiction and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s space saga to the big screen, drawing on all of his power and goodwill generated after his comeback, to help produce what was going to be a science fiction saga to rival Star Wars.
The $100 million film arrived in theaters in 2000, to much hype and fanfare. The film was critically and commercially panned by critics and audiences alike. The goodwill that Travolta had garnered with his outstanding run of quality pictures was in danger of being flushed down the toilet.
In recent years, though, that falling has become even greater. Terrible films, the sort of Old Dogs, Savages, Killing Season, and The Forger have marred the legacy of a potentially great actor.