Matthew Fox was on a major career roll for two decades.
He headlined not one but two popular shows in a row, with six seasons of the family drama
Party of Five and then six more years on the sci-fi mystery phenomenon Lost not long after.
As a result of this pair of beloved series, he had the rare distinction of being both
a heartthrob and a guy's guy, and seemed poised to launch from his wild island adventures
straight into the big time.
But the 2010s haven't been so kind to Fox, despite some notable big screen efforts on
his part.
Here are a few theories that explore why, lately, Matthew Fox has seemed so …
He broke big on TV
Fox established himself as a television star thanks to his turns as Charlie Salinger and
Jack Shepherd.
The small screen was his home from the get-go, having just a few film credits to his name
by the time Lost catapulted him into the spotlight.
But the silver screen still piqued his interest, and he tried out supporting roles in movies
like Smokin' Aces and We Are Marshall.
Neither of those were massive hits, but they did suggest that there might be a place for
him in the movie biz.
Unfortunately, a controversial show ending can follow an actor around like a dark cloud.
And few people would argue that Lost's finale was perhaps the worst show ending of all time.
It wasn't Fox's fault that the series ended on such a confusing and frustrating note.
But as the face of the series, there's a chance the blame could've fallen on him a little,
too — at least where ticket-buyers were concerned.
With audiences as upset as they were about the series' crazy conclusion, there's a very
real chance that some Fox fatigue set in as part of the fallout.
Hey, maybe the smoke monster will have better luck?
Big screen bombs
He may have proven that he can handle himself on a film set with his smaller outings, but
his should-be blockbuster debut Speed Racer was a car wreck.
It had a bloated budget and a lot of expectations behind it, but critics hated it, and it lost
a ton of money at the box office.
His big screen career had no hatch hideaway to shelter from this box office bomb.
The good news for Fox is that he was never really held accountable for the film's poor
performance.
But the wheels were already rolling in the wrong direction.
Then, Alex Cross happened.
Past adaptations of James Patterson's Alex Cross novels have done fairly well — movies
like Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider.
But Alex Cross failed to live up to its predecessors, despite some serious effort on Fox's part.
In the film, Fox played super bad guy Picasso, who tortured and maimed people for sport.
The actor reportedly dropped a whopping 20 percent of his weight to play the villain,
and shed his former image as the heroic Jack from Lost.
But despite how convincingly he played Picasso, the movie was absolutely trashed by critics
and — even worse — ignored by audiences.
Ouch.
Cutting room floor
Fox got one more shot in a film that actually did really well at the box office.
Too bad that his role was chopped to the point that no one knew he was actually in it.
The adaptation of Max Brooks' zombie epic World War Z was supposed to be something else
than what audiences saw in theaters.
But after the original cut was shot, a large chunk of the script was rewritten and reshot.
That left most of Fox's scenes on the editing room floor.
Fox would've starred as a colleague of Brad Pitt's Gerry Lane, caring for Lane's family
while he's off globe-trotting in an effort to stifle the undead epidemic, but his role
became a blink-and-you'd-miss-it parajumper scene.
"That's our target, get us down."
Seriously, that was it.
Hope you didn't blink...
All the wrong headlines
In August 2011, Fox's name was dragged through the mud as he was accused by a Cleveland woman
of punching her in the "arms, right leg, thighs and chest."
Later, his former Lost co-star Dominic Monaghan claimed on Twitter in 2012 that "he beats
women" as a reference to that event.
The woman's suit was ultimately dropped and Fox strongly denied the claims, but his reputation
was already sullied.
Fox denied the allegations completely in an interview with Ellen — but it's hard to
undo damage like that once it's been done.
Fox may have maintained his innocence of the assault charges he faced, but in 2012, he
was guilty of an entirely different crime.
He was arrested for driving under the influence in his home state of Oregon.
He did fess up to that incident on Ellen, insisting that he learned a hard lesson and
that he'd never do that again.
Even so, the combination of these tabloid-frenzied incidents certainly didn't help to elevate
his public profile.
Break from Hollywood
Even before things started to slow down for Fox's professional life, he'd already been
considering stepping away from the spotlight for a while.
Instead of living in Los Angeles like so many other stars, he lives in Oregon, where he
likes to fly planes and hang out with his family.
He told Men's Fitness in 2012 that he was considering retiring from the industry even
then, saying that if he didn't "get quality opportunities" he'd probably step away from
the scene.
Seems like he had a contingency plan in place the whole time!
But, for Fox fans hoping to see more of the actor, the good news is that he hasn't altogether
disappeared from the entertainment industry.
In 2015, he appeared in a pair of little-seen horror pics, Extinction and Bone Tomahawk,
the latter of which was very well received by critics, if not by audiences.
So, it seems he's not completely done with movies and television just yet.
In the meantime, we can watch endless Lost reruns and try to make heads or tails of what
was actually happening on that dumb island.
It's the mystery that keeps on giving.
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