15 Actors Hollywood Bet Big On Who Suddenly Disappeared

The Hollywood way is to crown a king or queen before the ink is dry. Just one good movie or cover story, and a star is considered the next big thing in movie stardom. Then the future comes, and they're nowhere to be seen.

Maybe they ended up being a flop. Or maybe it was just bad luck. Sometimes it's just a really talented actor who never got the right vehicle. Here are 15 actors that Hollywood was sure were going to be huge. Right up until they slipped off the radar.

Taylor Kitsch played Tim Riggins for five seasons in the TV series "Friday Night Lights", and he seemed poised for starring roles by 2012. But then two huge bombs came along in the form of "John Carter" and "Battleship," both flopping at the box office in the same year, and that killed his hopes of being a movie star. Kitsch has done great work in television since then, but the movie-star launch never took off.

For about a year, it seemed like Sam Worthington was everywhere. He starred in "Avatar," which was the highest-grossing film ever made at the time, and studios lined him up to be the next great action hero. The odd thing is how quickly it went away. Even though he starred in one of the biggest films in history, Worthington never really became a household name that drew audiences to movies. He was back for the "Avatar" sequels, though mostly painted blue.

Warner Bros. gave him the cape to wear in "Superman Returns" partly because he resembled Christopher Reeve. The film did well, but not as well as expected, and the planned sequel got scrapped. That was supposed to be his launchpad. He ended up doing TV shows instead and later had another superhero gig in "Legends of Tomorrow." Brandon Routh’s big launch never took place, however.

Clueless made Alicia Silverstone an absolute phenomenon in 1995, and Hollywood rewarded her with a multimillion-dollar production deal and gave her the role of Batgirl. But "Batman & Robin" was such a critical disaster that it nearly killed the franchise. She took all the blame, and movie offers dried up overnight. She has still worked steadily since, just never at the same level.

Getting picked to play Anakin Skywalker should have been the ultimate break in any career. Christensen starred in two "Star Wars" movies as the future Darth Vader, and, for a while, he became the most visible young actor in the world. The backlash from fans of prequels came, and a huge part of it was unfairly directed at him. His momentum evaporated. It wasn't until nearly two decades later that Disney brought him back as Vader, having mostly stepped away in the years between.

Vanity Fair gave Gretchen Mol a cover in 1998 and wondered if she was going to be Hollywood's next It girl. The label stuck before she had the work to back it up, but the roles that could have justified it never really came around. In fact, Mol proved to be a great actress later on "Boardwalk Empire," but that cover still gets cited as a lesson in hyping someone too early.

She was a working child star who broke through as a teenager in "American Beauty" and "Ghost World," and all critics were predicting her success in winning awards in the coming years. She had range and screen presence to spare. And then she basically disappeared. Her clashes with other people on the set and a complicated family-management situation prevented her from the big adult career everyone expected.

Back in the 90s, Chris O'Donnell was an up-and-coming young leading man, fresh from an acclaimed turn alongside Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman." He starred in two Batman films as Robin and seemed to be on his way to a lengthy reign at the top. Just as it did with Alicia Silverstone, "Batman & Robin" dimmed some of that lustre, and O'Donnell decided to back off into a domestic life. He returned years later in a starring role in the Los Angeles NCIS spin-off. A solid career, but one that looked nothing like the superstardom once predicted.

Into the Wild made him seem like a surefire A-lister back in 2007. "Milk" and "Speed Racer" were his next roles. Then in 2015, he pled guilty to assaulting a studio executive and spent time behind bars. The film industry cooled on him considerably. He still acts, but the trajectory bent hard for Emile Hirsch after that.

She's All That made Rachael Leigh Cook the poster girl of an entire teen-movie era in 1999. For a while, there she was on every cover of any magazine or movie poster that targeted teens. The leading roles thinned out surprisingly quickly, though. While Cook stayed active on TV, her later career found her acting in Netflix romance movies, a long way from the megastar path people sketched for her.

For a few years in the mid-90s, he was hailed by the press as the next Johnny Depp, and his appearance in "Scream" earned him the title of horror idol. The comparison set a bar almost nobody could clear. Ulrich was never given the parts that lived up to his hype, and he has been increasingly busy on TV shows like "Riverdale." Good actor, wrong decade maybe.

Katie Holmes became famous overnight due to "Dawson's Creek," and her move into films seemed effortless, even playing the role of Rachel in "Batman Begins." She seemed headed for Hollywood stardom. However, her personal life started making its way onto the news, including her very public marriage to Tom Cruise, and she didn’t return for the Batman sequel. Holmes is still working and directing, but the film career never hit the height that once seemed guaranteed.

Wes Bentley's performance in "American Beauty" was one of the most talked-about debuts in 1999. Everyone thought that he would shoot his way to the top. A serious drug problem took him out of the film industry for a few years, an issue about which he has spoken openly ever since. He clawed his way back with roles in "The Hunger Games" and "Yellowstone," making his story an inspiring one.

Everybody who grew up in the 90s knew Devon Sawa as the human Casper and later as the protagonist of "Final Destination." He was a genuine heartthrob with a horror-movie edge. A successful future seemed pretty much guaranteed. But he disappeared for the better part of a decade. Sawa has talked openly about walking away and later fighting to get back in, and he has been working consistently again on shows like "Chucky."

When "Chronicle" was released in 2012, critics likened Dane DeHaan to a young Leonardo DiCaprio, and it was easy to see why. But then his role in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" was disappointing, and "Valerian" became one of the more expensive flops of its year. The comparisons to DiCaprio were no longer being made, and DeHaan settled into smaller, sharper roles instead of the stardom people forecast.