What the Hell Happened to Christian Slater?

When Christian Slater came onto the scene, he was compared to a young Jack Nicholson.  In the late 80’s and early 90’s he was one of Hollywood’s most talked-about actors.  While he never really headlined any massive box office hits, he sure seemed like a big time movie star.  Slater also made headlines with his frequent run-ins with the law.  By 2011, the internet was buzzing with rumors that he was dead.

What the hell happened?

Christian Slater - The Music Man - 1980
Christian Slater – The Music Man – 1980

Christian Slater’s father was a soap star and his mother was a casting agent.  At age seven, Slater’s mom gave him a bit part on the soap, One Life to Live.  When Slater was 8, he made an unscheduled appearance on The Joe Franklin Show.  Slater’s mother was a guest on the show and when the host spotted her son waiting in the wings, he called Slater on to the set.

Director Michael Kidd happened to be watching the show when Slater came on and ended up casting him in the 1980 Broadway revival of The Music Man starring Dick Van Dyke.

At first I had no idea what I was doing,  I was up on stage and I’d be waving at my mother in the audience. But as the tour went on, I started to grasp the idea that I had to be a whole different character and not myself when I was on stage.

Christian Slater - Standing Room Only: Sherlock Holmes - 1981
Christian Slater – Standing Room Only: Sherlock Holmes – 1981

In 1981 Slater appeared on the HBO series Standing Room Only.  In the early days of premium cable, Standing Room Only presented various stage acts on TV.  Slater appeared very briefly in a televised performance of Sherlock Holmes starring Frank Langella as the famous detective.

Christian Slater - CBS Library - Robbers, Rooftops and Witches - 1982
Christian Slater – CBS Library – Robbers, Rooftops and Witches – 1982

The following year, Slater appeared in an episode of the anthology show, CBS Library.  His segment adapted the Ray Bradbury story, The Invisible Boy.  Slater played a young boy whose parents are away.  In their absence, he is being cared for by an old woman in the woods who claims to be a witch.  He asks her to share her magic with him so she makes a potion which she claims has turned him invisible.  Slater spends the rest of the episode trying to determine whether or not the magic is real.  While filming the TV show, the young actor broke down crying on the set because the script called for him to take off his clothes.

Christian Slater - ABC Weekend Specials: The Haunted Mansion Mystery - 1983
Christian Slater – ABC Weekend Specials: The Haunted Mansion Mystery – 1983

In 1983, Slater starred in an ABC Weekend Special based on Virginia Masterman-Smith’s novel, The Haunted Mansion Mystery.  Slater played a neighborhood kid who tells the new girl in town that her new home is haunted by a creepy old miser.  According to legend, the miser hid a million dollars in cash in a secret room in the mansion’s basement.  The kids go on a treasure hunt but are trapped in a cave-in beneath the house.

Christian Slater - Living Proof: The Hank Williams, Jr. Story - 1983
Christian Slater – Living Proof: The Hank Williams, Jr. Story – 1983

Slater also appeared in the TV movie, Living Proof: The Hank Williams, Jr. Story.  Richard Thomas, aka John-Boy from The Waltons, played the country singer who struggled to get out from his father’s shadows.  The movie depicted Williams’ bouts with alcoholism and a near-fatal mountain climbing accident.  Jay O. Sanders played rancher Dick Willey who accompanied Williams on the climb.  Slater played Willey’s son who stayed with Williams’ while his dad went for help.

Christian Slater - Tales from the Darkside - 1984
Christian Slater – Tales from the Darkside – 1984

In 1984, Slater appeared in an episode of the horror anthology series, Tales From the Darkside.  In A Case of the Stubborns, Slater played a teen whose grandfather is too stubborn to admit he’s dead.  Slater tries to prod his granddad on to the great beyond.  When that fails, he enlists the help of a reverend played by a pre-Star Trek Brent Spiner.

slater - the-legend-of-billie-jean
Christian Slater – The Legend of Billie Jean – 1985

Slater’s first role on the big screen was opposite 80’s superbabe (and Supergirl) Helen Slater in the teen rebellion comedy/drama, The Legend of Billie Jean.

The two Slaters (who are not related) played Texas siblings in the movie.  Billie Jean (Helen Slater) is harassed by a group of teenage boys.  Her brother Binx (Christian Slater) humiliates the boys.  As revenge, the boys steal Binx’s precious scooter.  When Binx goes to reclaim his scooter from the bullies, they beat him up and trash the scooter.  Billie Jean and Binx go to the head bully’s father and ask him for $608 dollars to fix the broken scooter.  Instead, he attempts to rape Billie Jean.  Binx pulls a gun on the would-be rapist and accidentally shoots him in the shoulder.  They escape and become fugitives.  Eventually, they take a willing hostage played by Keith Gordon and issue a demand for their money with the rally cry “fair is fair”.  The media coverage of the event makes Billie Jean into a teen icon.

Leadin up to 1984’s Supergirl, it was assumed that Helen Slater would become a movie star like Christopher Reeve.  Unfortunately, that movie tanked.   The next year, many assumed that Billie Jean would make Helen Slater a household name.  But that didn’t happen either.  Reportedly, Helen Slater was already something of a prima donna on the set despite not yet being a star.  Here are some stories from people who worked on the film:

During the scene when she was chasing the ambulance with Binx inside, the driver drove way too fast and she couldn’t keep up so she just stopped short right in the middle of the street stamping her feet in disgust.  The crowd of extras running full speed right behind her couldn’t stop in time and plowed into her knocking her over.  Everybody started to laugh and she stormed off to her tent.

I was an extra in The Legend of Billie Jean and I remember it took quite a few takes for the scene when they were going up the escalator in the Sunrise Mall.  The one take I remember the most is when Helen Slater overshot the rail and ended up in the waterfall.  She promptly got up and stomped off the scene mumbling to herself.  It took another two hours before we shot again.

Christian Slater - The Legend of Billie Jean - 1985
Christian Slater – The Legend of Billie Jean – 1985

Christian Slater later professed to having a massive crush on his co-star:

I was madly in love with Helen Slater.  I thought for sure this was the woman I was supposed to marry – I mean we had the same name!

But Helen Slater was twenty-two at the time and apparently she was not exactly gentle when she rejected her fifteen-year-old co-star.  Christian Slater described the experience as “brutal.”  “I’ve done everything I can to make up for it since.”

Originally, The Legend of Billie Jean received an R-rating for language.  The rating was reduced to a PG-13 on appeal despite no changes being made to the movie.  After principal shooting had wrapped, several scenes were reshot.  This required Helen Slater to wear a wig for the reshoots to hide the fact that she had cut her hair.

Alas, despite a strong marketing push, The Legend of Billie Jean was not the hit it was supposed to be.  It opened in 14th place behind The Goonies which had been in theaters for seven weeks by that point.  Helen Slater never became a star.  And the two Slaters never married.

Christian Slater - Ryan's Hope - 1985
Christian Slater – Ryan’s Hope – 1985

Later that year, Slater followed in his father’s footsteps with a recurring role on the daytime soap, Ryan’s Hope.  Slater played the new bad boy in school, a bad boy with a leather jacket and a smart mouth.  His character’s name was D.J.  Later on in Heathers, he would play a bad boy named J.D.  Here is a scene in which Slater’s character sasses a nun in class.

Slater’s character was a romantic interest on the show for future Baywatch star, Yasmine Bleeth.  He appeared on six episodes of the soap.

slater - the-name-of-the-rose4
Christian Slater – The Name of the Rose – 1986

In 1986, Slater returned to the big screen alongside Sean Connery in the mystery, The Name of the Rose.

Connery starred as an unconventional monk investigating a mysterious death in a Benedictine Abbey.  F. Murray Abraham played an inquisitor called in to take over the investigation should Connery fail to solve the case.  Slater portrayed Connery’s young assistant.

The casting of Connery proved controversial.  Director Jean-Jacques Annaud resisted the idea of casting the former 007 as a monk.  But when he couldn’t find a suitable actor, he allowed Connery to read for the part and was impressed enough to cast him as the lead.  Umberto Eco, author of the book on which the movie was based, was said to be dismayed by the decision and Columbia Pictures pulled out of the project entirely.

Slater was grateful for the chance to work with Connery at such a young age:

Sean Connery was great. I grew up watching the Bond movies, and working with him at 16 was like having a master class in acting, life, all sorts of things. He’s an incredible professional, a real gentleman, a man’s man. He also didn’t take any shit from anybody.

Slater was selected from hundreds of teenage boys to play Connery’s sidekick.  Once Slater was cast, Annaud asked him to read with three actresses who were being considered for the role of “The Girl”.  The first actress was 22-year-old Valentina Vargas.  Slater was scheduled to read with the other two actresses the following day, but the fifteen-year-old Slater was so smitten with Vargas that he sent his mother to ask Annaud to cast her.  Annaud agreed and the other two actresses were dropped from consideration.

Christian Slater - The Name of the Rose - 1986
Christian Slater – The Name of the Rose – 1986

Slater and Vargas had a wordless scene together during which she seduces him.  At 15, Slater had his first nude scene with a co-star who was seven years older than him.  Annaud didn’t tell Slater what Vargas would be doing.  He hoped that this would elicit a more authentic reaction.  After he finished shooting the scene, Slater said he went home and played with his Star Wars figures.

Slater found the entire process intimidating:

On Name of the Rose, I was a nervous wreck working with F. Murray Abraham and Sean Connery. But after that movie–after I did this wild love scene and survived next to these great actors–I felt that if I could do that, I could do anything. For me it was an unbelievable thing I accomplished. It shocked the hell out of me.

Although The Name of the Rose currently holds a healthy 76% approval score at Rotten Tomatoes, reviews at the time were a lot less positive.  Roger Ebert gave it 2.5 stars which was indicative of the mixed critical reaction.  The movie received a very limited release in the US where it grossed only $7 million dollars.  But it was a hit in Europe.

Christian Slater - The Equalizer - 1986
Christian Slater – The Equalizer – 1986

Slater began making more frequent appearances on TV.  On The Equalizer, he played a teenage boy who takes a hearse for a joyride with his friend.  They discover that the hearse contains a coffin full of drugs which one of the boys decides to sell.  That proves to be a fatal error.  When his friend is killed by a drug lord, Slater needs helps from The Equalizer.

Christian Slater - All My Children - 1986
Christian Slater – All My Children – 1986

Slater briefly appeared on another daytime soap in 1986.  This time, it was All My Children.

Christian Slater - Crime Story - 1986
Christian Slater – Crime Story – 1986

Slater also appeared in an episode of the TV drama, Crime Story.  His part is very small.  He plays a teen who is putting the moves on a girl in his car.  When she gets out of the car, he chases after her and begins kissing her.  But their make-out session is interrupted when she spots a dead body.

I know the screen capture is a bit on the fuzzy side, but the girl is played by Slater’s future Heathers co-star and then-girlfriend, Kim Walker.

Christian Slater - Twisted
Christian Slater – Twisted

One of Slater’s more obscure movies is the horror film, Twisted.  Slater played a Nazi-obsessed teenage nerd who terrorizes his sister and new babysitter.  The movie was filmed in 1983 when Slater was 14 and never received a theatrical release.  In 1986, as Slater was become better known, the movie was dumped on video.

Making Twisted turned out to be a nightmare for the young actor.  He was told he would need to drop his pants for an unscripted scene.  Slater pleaded with a movie executive to reconsider.  He was told that since he didn’t have a no nudity clause in his contract, he was obligated to take his pants off on camera.

I think I was drugged and kidnapped for that film.  I had a guardian appointed, but maybe she was working for them, because she didn’t support me in any way. I tried to call my mother, and the line was busy.

Christian Slater - L.A. Law - 1988
Christian Slater – L.A. Law – 1988

Slater kicked off 1988 with a guest spot on the TV drama, L.A. Law.  Slater played a young man accused of murdering a convenience store clerk.  He’s being defended by Harry Hamlin and his friend who also stands accused is being defended by Susan Dey.  Late in the trial, Slater’s friend accuses Slater of confessing to the crime which Slater denies.  The prosecutor in the case is played by Ray Wise of Twin Peaks fame.  *spoiler alert* Despite the best efforts of Hamlin and Dey, only one of the boys is released.

slater - tucker
Christian Slater – Tucker: The Man and His Dream – 1988

Later that year, Slater had a supporting role in Francis Ford Coppola’s biopic, Tucker: The Man and His Dream.

Jeff Bridges starred as Preston Tucker, a car designer who sought to revolutionize the industry with his “car of the future” following World War II.  Martin Landau played a financier who backs Bridges’ scheme.  Joan Allen portrayed his wife and Slater played Tucker’s eldest son.

Tucker was a passion project for Coppola.  Elements Tucker’s life story parallel Coppola’s own experiences with his production company, American Zoetrope.  Coppola originally envisioned the movie as a musical starring Marlon Brando or Jack Nicholson.  But he abandoned the project in the mid-eighties after a couple of high-profile bombs forced American Zoetrope to file for bankruptcy.

Coppola’s former protege, George Lucas, ended up salvaging the project.  Lucas produced the 3-D Michael Jackson movie Captain Eo for Disney theme parks and hired his old friend to direct.  While they were working on Eo, Lucas encouraged Coppola to revisit the Tucker movie, but not as a musical.  Lucas suggested he should pay homage to the films of Frank Capra instead.

Coppola and Lucas began shopping the project to studios with a price tag of $24 million dollars.  But the studios were leery of the project.  By the late 80’s, Lucas had produced a couple of big budget flops himself.  Several studios expressed interest in the movie if the budget could be dropped to $15 million dollars.  Instead, Lucas decided to fund Tucker himself.

According to Slater, Coppola created a very comfortable working environment on the set:

The whole film was like a big family. Coppola sets that kind of mood. It was another instance of me looking around, age 18, thinking ‘Jesus, what the hell am I doing here?’

Despite mostly positive reviews, Tucker did not perform well at the box office.  It opened in 6th place behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit which had been in theaters for eight weeks by that point.  It should be noted that Tucker was playing in about half as many theaters as the rest of the movies in the top 10.  It ended up grossing less than $20 million dollars which fell short of the production costs.

Christian Slater - Gleaming the Cube - 1989
Christian Slater – Gleaming the Cube – 1989

1989 was a very big year for Slater.  He kicked it off by starring in the low-budget skateboarding drama, Gleaming the Cube.

Slater played a California skateboarder whose adopted brother is killed when he discovers that the company he works for is secretly shipping weapons to Vietnam instead of medicine.  When the police write his brother’s death off as a suicide, Slater becomes an amateur skateboarding detective.

Although Gleaming only received a small theatrical release, it has built up a following as the skateboarding craze caught on.

Christian Slater - Desperate for Love - 1989
Christian Slater – Desperate for Love – 1989

Slater followed that up with the TV movie, Desperate for Love.  The movie is based on the true story of a high school love triangle that ended in murder.  Slater played a shy introverted high school student who is best friends with the most popular kid in school.  His friend has been dating an attractive cheerleader with a reputation for promiscuity.  The friend and the cheerleader break up and she runs to Slater for comfort.  But when the friend changes his mind, she runs back to her old boyfriend.  A month later, Slater and his friend go on a hunting trip which ends with Slater being accused of murder.

Slater - Beyond the Stars
Christian Slater – Beyond the Stars – 1989

Slater also appeared in the low-budget sci-fi drama, Beyond the Stars co-starring Martin Sheen and Sharon Stone.

Slater starred as a teenager who wants to be an astronaut.  He befriends a former astronaut played by Sheen.  Sheen’s character is something of an outcast among the other astronauts.  When he returned from his moon mission, he behaved erratically which has alienated him from his peers.  As Slater gets to know him, he begins to suspect that Sheen is keeping secrets from his moon landing.

The cast also included Olivia d’Abo and F. Murray Abraham.  Beyond the Stars didn’t receive a theatrical release.

slater - heathers
Winona Ryder and Christian Slater – Heathers – 1989

Later that year, Slater appeared opposite Winona Ryder in the cult classic dark comedy, Heathers.

Ryder played a high school girl who has been invited to join the popular girls all three of which happen to be named Heather.  Kim Walker played Heather Chandler, the leader of the group.  Lisanne Falk played Heather McNamara, the cheerleader.  And Shannen Doherty played the third Heather, Heather Duke.  Slater played the new boy in school, a rebel with the same initials as James Dean.  When Ryder and Walker have a falling out, Slater suggests murder.  Soon, Ryder finds herself staging fake suicides for her classmates.

Screenwriter Daniel Waters originally envisioned Heathers as a three-hour movie directed by Stanley Kubrick.  When he couldn’t get his script to the legendary director, Waters gave it to Michael Lehmann who showed it to producer Denise Di Novi.  According to Di Novi: “I brought it to the executives at New World, and they were like, ‘What the hell is this? Are you crazy?'”

Di Novi sold the indie studio on the script, but they demanded a few changes.  In the original script, Slater’s character succeeds in blowing up the school and all the characters are reunited at a prom scene in heaven.  Another alternate ending had Veronica stabbed to death by a classmate who mistook her for one of the Heathers.  But the studio resisted that ending as well.

In the early stages of production, an informal read-through of the script included Dana Delaney as Veronica and Brad Pitt as J.D.  According to Waters:

After the reading was over, the pimply faced, blond Brad Pitt came up to me and said, ‘Hey, man, I know I’m not anybody. But for what it’s worth, that was brilliant.’

Jennifer Connelly and Justine Bateman were both offered the leading role and passed.  Ryder had to plead with Waters for the part.  Waters remembered seeing Ryder from the movie Lucas and deemed her not attractive enough.  But according to Lehman, he recognized Ryder’s star potential immediately.

The first time we shot with her, I turned to the cameraman and said, ‘This girl is a movie star.’

Christian Slater - Heathers - 1989
Winona Ryder and Christian Slater – Heathers – 1989

According to Slater, his audition for Heathers did not go well.

I remember leaving the audition and feeling like, ‘Oh God, I really blew it.’ I threw the script in the garbage angrily. I had a big tantrum.

Heather Graham was the first choice to play Heather Chandler.  But the young actress’ parents objected to the subject matter and refused to let her play the part.  When Lehmann couldn’t change Graham’s mother’s mind, they cast their second choice who happened to be Slater’s girlfriend at the time.

I really wanted to cast Heather Graham, and her parents wouldn’t let her do it. She was 16 or 17. I even talked to Heather’s mother at great length to convince her we weren’t tools of Satan, and she would have nothing of it. I really tried. I mean, I begged her. Heather’s reading was just great. Then the casting director said, ‘Well, Kim Walker might be good. She doesn’t have a lot of experience, but…’

Winona Ryder and Christian Slater - Heathers - 1989
Winona Ryder and Christian Slater – Heathers – 1989

Heathers has a minuscule $3 million dollar budget and just 33 days in which to shoot.  That meant long days for the cast and crew.  According to Lehmann, Slater was “professional, but there were a couple of times when he slept in late and we had to retrieve him. He said he had a sleeping disorder.”  Slater said he doesn’t remember being late, but if he ever had a sleeping disorder he has since recovered.  According to co-star Lisanne Falk, Slater was always “in his trailer or smoking cigarettes”.  Doherty agreed that Slater was “a tiny bit aloof.”  Slater admitted that he was focused on Ryder to the exclusion of the rest of the cast:

I got so into working with Winona that I had blinders on to everyone else. It was almost like J.D. didn’t have patience for any of those people, either. I stayed away from Shannen. She seemed to not have any interest in me, so I just kept my distance.

During filming, Slater and Walker broke up.  According to Slater:

Kim`s a terrific actress.  But then there was Winona Ryder. She`s a beautiful girl. She`s wonderful, she`s talented, she`s very energetic, she`s very entertaining, she`s very funny. So it was difficult for me not to fall in love with her. Having my girlfriend on the set made not falling in love with her much easier. But yeah — that chemistry made it, uh, a … nice working environment. And it made for some interesting moments in my life. Winona and I are just good friends now, too.

Christian Slater and Winona Ryder
Christian Slater and Winona Ryder

Slater and Ryder disagree over whether or not they were ever a couple.  Slater claims that they tried out a romantic relationship.  Ryder admits she had a crush on Slater but says they never went out.  According to Ryder:

There were a couple of times where we tried to go out, but there was always some sort of drama. Nothing happened until after the movie. Then I do remember, like, making out with him a few times after he broke up with Kim.

Heathers was released in Europe in 1988.  When it hit theaters in the US, New World Pictures was in the middle of a bankruptcy.  Di Novi described the release as ” a nightmare.”  She said she had to pay for an ad for the movie in the L.A. Time herself.  New World gave Heathers a limited release topping out at just over 50 theaters.  During its theatrical run, it grossed just over $1 million dollars or approximately one third of its budget.  Over time, the movie has developed a strong cult following.

Winona Ryder and Christian Slater - Heathers - 1989
Winona Ryder and Christian Slater – Heathers – 1989

Following the movie’s box office failure, Waters tried to pitch a TV show based on the movie to the fledgling Fox network.  According to Waters, Fox liked the script but chose to make Beverly Hills 90210 instead.  That show made a star of Heathers cast-member Shannen Doherty.  Waters also came up with an idea for a Heathers sequel:

I did come up with this crazy, cockamamy Heathers 2 where Veronica becomes a page for a senator named Heather, played by Meryl Streep. The ending is her assassinating the president and getting away with it — and it’s a good thing.

Ryder liked the idea so much, she pitched it to Streep without consulting anyone:

I was working with Meryl on The House of the Spirits. I was pitching her the whole thing in the makeup chair one day. She was very sweet about it, and she was like, ‘Oh, that sounds really great!’ But what else are you going to tell a panting 19-year-old? She could’ve been just waiting for me to shut up.

Over the years, there has been talk of a sequel or a TV series.  But neither one has ever happened.  In 2010, the movie was directed into a stage play which had an Off Broadway run in 2014.  Despite being a box office failure, Heathers had an immense cultural impact.  It also made Ryder and Slater into movie stars.

Bridget Fonda and Christian Slater - The Edge - 1989
Bridget Fonda and Christian Slater – The Edge – 1989

Slater also appeared in an episode of HBO’s gritty anthology series, The Edge.  According to the LA Times, “the three-episode anthology series strives for a Blue Velvet-like kinkiness, mystique and dark tone, but ends up being only unredeemingly gory and pretentious.”  Episodes were introduced by a narrator named the Watcher.

The third and final episode of the series was titled The Professional Man and it starred Slater and Bridget Fonda.  Slater played a hit-man known as The Kid.  Fonda played his girlfriend, a waitress at a strip club.  When Slater’s boss makes a move on Fonda, she rejects him.  So his boss gives Slater a choice to either change Fonda’s mind or kill her.  He opts for a third option.

slater - the wizard
Christian Slater – The Wizard – 1989

Slater finished the year with a supporting role in the feature-length Nintendo commercial, The Wizard, opposite Beau Bridges and Fred Savage.

Savage and Slater played brothers whose younger sibling is a video game savant.  They take him cross country to compete in a video game championship.  Bridges played the boys’ father.  Tobey Maguire had an uncredited role as one of the lackeys of the movie’s preteen villain.

Not surprisingly, critics hared The Wizard.  Roger Ebert called it “a cynical exploitation film with a lot of commercial plugs.”  It opened in fifth place at the box office behind The Little Mermaid which had been in theaters for five weeks by that point.  It ended up grossing just over $14 million dollars on a six million dollar budget making it the most commercially successful movie of Slater’s career to this point.

As Slater was settling into the good life, he also started having regular run-ins with the law.  In 1989, he and some friends were driving home from an L.A. club when the police tried to pull him over for speeding.  Slater was drunk and lead the police on a chase down a back alley.  After he crashed his Saab into two telephone poles, Slater jumped out of the car and ran.  He kicked a police officer while trying to climb a chain-link fence.  According to Slater, “I thought I was Batman.  I had the same mentality—but not the utility belt.”

Slater was sentenced to 10 days in jail.  He pledged to remain on the straight and narrow going forward, “You know you have a lot to answer for.  So either you wake up or continue on the same path and eventually die.”

Despite his good intentions, this wouldn’t be the last of Slater’s legal woes.

Christian Slater - Tales from the Darkside: The Movie - 1990
Christian Slater – Tales from the Darkside: The Movie – 1990

Despite never having starred in a hit movie, Slater was now a Hollywood celebrity.  In 1990, Slater appeared in three films the first of which was Tales from the Darkside: The Movie.

Like the TV show it was based on, Tales From the Darkside was a horror anthology.   The movie consisted of three stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King and an old Japanese folk story.  Slater appeared in the first story, Lot 249, in which a graduate student played by Steve Buscemi uses a mummy to exact revenge on two classmates who have wronged him.  One of the classmates was played by Julianne Moore.  Slater played Moore’s sister who learns of her fate and decides to confront Buscemi.

The TV show on which the movie was based started as a spin-off of George Romero and Stephen King’s 1982 horror movie, Creepshow.  Due to issues with the rights, the name of the TV show was changed to Tales From the Darkside.  After Creepshow 2, there wasn’t a lot of demand for a third movie.  But the TV show had been a hit.  So the decision was made to make a Tales From the Darkside movie rather than a third Creepshow.

A lot of the same people who worked on the Creepshow movies also worked on Tales From the Darkside: the Movie.  In 2007, Creepshow 3 was released direct to video, but it had no involvement from the people responsible for the first two movies which lead Tom Savini to call Tales From the Darkside “the real Creepshow 3.

Despite bad reviews, Tales From the Darkside was a modest hit.  It opened in third place at the box office behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which had been in theaters for six weeks.  It’s final gross was about $16 million which was right in line with what the Creepshow movies made.  A sequel was announced and then quietly abandoned.

slater - young_guns2
Emilio Estevez and Christian Slater – Young Guns II – 1990

Later that year, Slater saddled up for the Brat Pack Western, Young Guns 2.

The original Young Guns had been a surprise hit a couple of years before.  Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips returned from the original.  But Charlie Sheen left a bad-boy shaped hole  in the cast which Slater was hired to fill.  The sequel follows the latter half of Billy the Kid’s career during which he was pursued by his former partner, Pat Garrett played by William Petersen.  Slater played the gang’s new bad boy.

While making the first Young Guns, the actors passed the time with elaborate pranks.  This behavior continued on the sequel.  This time, Estevez pranked Sutherland while he was filming a scene in a bathtub.  Estevez, apparently a fan of the movie Caddyshack, slipped a Baby Ruth candy bar into the tub so it would float to the surface while Sutherland was shooting the scene.

Phillips was involved in a close call during the making of Young Guns II.  His horse became spooked by the sound of Estevez shooting.  The horse threw Phillips and dragged him by the noose.  Phillips broke an arm and a kneecap in the injury.  As a result, a scene was added to the movie in which Slater’s character stabs him in the arm.

Like the first film, Young Guns 2 got mixed reviews and performed reasonably well at the box office.  It opened in third place at the box office behind Presumed Innocent which was in its second week in theaters.

Christian Slater - Pump Up the Volume - 1990
Christian Slater – Pump Up the Volume – 1990

A couple of weeks after Young Guns 2 was released, Slater starred in the teen-drama, Pump Up the Volume.

Slater played a smart but shy high school student who has just moved from the East Coast to Arizona.  His parents give him a short-wave radio so he can keep in touch with his friends back home.  Instead, he starts broadcasting a pirate radio show as his alter ego, Hard Harry.  His broadcasts make Slater a hero to his peers, but the local principal wants to shut his show down.  Samantha Mathis played a classmate who discovers Slater’s dual identity.

Slater wasn’t initially a fan of Pump Up the Volume, but he said he has come to appreciate it over time:

I recently watched Pump Up the Volume again – I loved it. At the time I was making it, I couldn’t relate to it at all. I just thought it was kind of a goofy high school movie. But it expresses a lot of the feelings that I have today.

Despite getting some decent reviews, Pump Up the Volume was not a hit at the box office.  It opened in fifteenth place at the box office behind Problem Child which had been in theaters for five weeks.  Pump Up the Volume only pumped up about $11 million dollars in grosses.

slater robin hood
Kevin Costner and Christian Slater – Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – 1991

In 1991, Slater finally appeared in a bona fide smash hit with a supporting role in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner.

Costner played Robin of Locksley, who according to legend stole from the rich to give to the poor.  As played by Costner, he also had an inconsistent English accent.  Morgan Freeman co-starred as a Moor indebted to Costner for saving his life. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio portrayed Maid Marian and Alan Rickman vamped it up as the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham.  Slater played one of Costner’s merry men.

Robin Hood was directed by Costner’s long-time friend and frequent collaborator, Kevin Reynolds.  Reynolds had directed Costner in one of his early movies, Fandango,  But now, Costner was a star coming off winning a Best Director Oscar for Dances With Wolves.  So it’s probably not surprising that a power struggle ensued.  Before the movie was released, Costner seemed to be bracing for the worst:

The collaborative process was not satisfying to me because it never came about.  But you just hang in there and keep going forward and tough things out.

Christian Slater - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - 1991
Christian Slater – Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – 1991

The problems started with the script which Costner said was too long.  It started at 135 pages which is 20 pages longer than what Costner said was typical.  But then Reynolds allowed Alan Rickman to have his part beefed up which caused the script to swell to 140 pages.  Costner complained that his character suffered as a result:

What the hell are you going to do? We already had a long picture. Now we had a really long picture.  Some of my scenes started to get cut in half… And it was beginning to be shrunk in a way that wasn`t comfortable for me. The two combinations for me were trying to revive that guy (Robin Hood) and fighting for a rehearsal time, because this was a movie that just didn`t have it.

Costner and Reynolds also fought over Costner’s notoriously lousy English accent.  Reynolds didn’t want him to do it.  Costner trained with a dialect coach, but ultimately fired the coach and gave up on the accent.  According to Costner, “That was a scary thing for me, because I didn`t want to look foolish in a film. But I didn`t want to back away from what I thought was appropriate.”

Adding to the stress, there were two other Robin Hood movies in development.  There was a race to be the first movie into theaters.  Costner declared Prince of Thieves the winner of that contest.  “We successfully derailed the other two.”  In order to do so, Prince of Thieves had to be completed during the fall when shooting was cut short due to fading sunlight.

During post-production, Costner was involved in re-editing the film.  Reportedly, Costner locked the original editor out of the editing suite while he reworked the movie.  Reynolds was shown the re-edited version of the film and was less than impressed.

Despite mixed to negative reviews, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was a smash hit at the box office. It was the second-highest grossing film of the year behind Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

Christian Slater - Mobsters - 1991
Christian Slater – Mobsters – 1991

Later that summer, Slater appeared in the mafia drama, Mobsters.

Mobsters was a highly fictionalized retelling of the creation of the New York crime organization known as The Commission.  Set in New York City in the early twentieth century, Mobsters tells the story of how  Charles “Lucky” Luciano (Slater), Meyer Lansky (Patrick Dempsey), Frank Costello (Costas Mandylor), and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (Richard Grieco) rose to power.  The supporting cast included Anthony Quinn, Lara Flynn Boyle, F. Murray Abraham and Chris Penn.

Critics panned Mobsters.  Reviews were universally negative.  It opened at second place at the box office behind Terminator 2 which had already been playing for four weeks.  In the end, Mobsters grossed just over $20 million dollars falling below its $23 million dollar production cost and ending any hopes Costas Mandylor may have had at becoming a movie star.

Both Anthony Quinn and Slater were nominated for Golden Raspberries for Worst Supporting Actor.  But Dan Aykroyd “won” for Nothing But Trouble.

slater - star trek
Christian Slater – Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country – 1991

Slater finished the year with a cameo appearance in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Undiscovered Country was the last film in the series to star the entire original cast.  Slater’s role was just a cameo.  Reportedly, Slater was a big Star Trek fan.  It helped that his mother was the casting agent on the film.

Star Trek VI was made on a shoestring budget.  To cut costs, Paramount reused costumes from previous films.  Slater’s uniform pants were originally worn by William Shatner in the 1982 sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  In a BBC interview, Slater quipped “It was an honor to get into Shatner’s pants.”

He was paid $750 for his uncredited cameo but framed his check rather than cashing it.

Legend has it that as a child, Slater shaved his eyebrows in an attempt to look like Mr. Spock.  Supposedly the eyebrows never fully grew back in which resulted in his signature uneven look.

slater - kuffs
Christian Slater – Kuffs – 1992

In 1992, Slater attempted another lead role in the cop comedy/drama Kuffs.

Slater played a high school drop-out who has just been dumped by his pregnant girlfriend played by Milla Jovovich.  Desperate for money, Slater visits his older brother played by Bruce Boxleitner to ask him for a loan.  His brother denies the loan but offers him a job working for him as a civilian police officer.  While Slater considers the offer, Boxleitner is killed.  He inherits his brother’s business and works to bring the men responsible to justice.  Ashley Judd also popped up in her film debut

The critics were not kind to Kuffs.  Entertainment Weekly’s critic took Slater to task:

Slater, with his heartthrob smirk, has obviously read (and believed) one too many reviews hailing him as the junior-league Jack Nicholson… Attitude used to be something you earned instead of just tried on like a baseball cap.

Kuffs opened in fifth place at the box office behind Father of the Bride which was in its fourth week in theaters.  It ended up grossing just over $20 million dollars.

slater - ferngully
Christian Slater doing voice work for FernGully: The Last Rainforest – 1992

Slater also did voice-over work for the environmentally minded animated film, FernGully: The Last Rainforest.

Samatha Mathis from Pump Up the Volume voiced a fairy who is intrigued by the world outside the magic forest of FernGully.  One day while exploring, she comes across a bat named Batty voiced by Robin Williams.  He claims to have been experimented on by humans.  At first, Mathis is skeptical of his story until she meets and saves a human boy.  She accidentally shrinks the boy to fairy size and brings him back to FernGully to try to restore him.  Slater played her friend who grows jealous of the boy and Tim Curry voiced the movie’s villain.

The entire cast worked for scale because they believed in the movie’s pro-environment message.  The movie also marked the reunion of Cheech and Chong who hadn’t worked together in six years prior to voicing supporting characters in the film.

Despite mostly positive reviews, FernGully was not a hit at the box office.  It opened in fifth place behind Beethoven which had been in theaters for two weeks.  Ferngully‘s domestic gross was just shy of $25 million dollars which is about what it cost to make.

FernGully also featured the voices of Slater’s Pump Up the Volume co-star, Samantha Mathis and Robin Williams.  Despite decent reviews, it bombed at the box office.  It sold well enough on home video that a direct-to-video sequel was released in 1998.  These days, FernGully is frequently mentioned by those critical of Avatar which had similar environmental themes.

slater - untamed heart
Christian Slater – Untamed Heart – 1993

In 1993, Slater continued to trying to establish himself as a leading man.  First, he tried to reinvent himself as a romantic lead with a sensitive performance opposite Marisa Tomei in the romantic melodrama Untamed Heart.

Tomei played a waitress who is unlucky at love.  One day on her way home from work, she is attacked by two men.  Fortunately she is saved by a shy busboy played by Slater.  They strike up a romantic relationship.  One day, Tomei’s attackers stab Slater as revenge for interrupting their rape plans.  While he is recovering at the hospital, Tomei discovers that he has a heart defect.  But Slater refuses to have a life-saving heart transplant because he believes that his love for Tomei is contained within his damaged heart.  That’s sweet but incredibly stupid.

The screenplay for Untamed Heart was discovered by producer and director, Tony Bill, during a talent hunt.  He was looking for scripts by new writers and thought he found a winner in Tom Sierchio’s script, originally titled The Baboon Heart.  Two weeks after Sierchio handed his script to his agent, it was greenlit by a major studio.

Several big name stars began lobbying for roles including Geena Davis, Demi Moore and Brad Pitt.  Madonna was very interested in the lead role on the condition that Jason Patric was cast as her co-star.  The Material Girl dropped out when she heard Billy Baldwin was cast instead.

Reviews were decidedly mixed.  Some critics were able to overcome the inherent sappiness of the story and enjoyed its sweet nature.  Roger Ebert called it a “fairy tale with dishwasher hands”.  Other critics complained that the story was overly sentimental.  Although most critics agreed that the performances by Tomei and Slater were strong.

Slater enjoyed making Untamed Heart.  He said the role brought him peace:

The happiest movie I did in the last eight years was Untamed Heart. I did latch on to that identity [a shy busboy], and I was peaceful. Not that I necessarily have to be that guy, but I got a glimmer, a taste of what it’s like to have some peace, to not act like the idiot.

Audiences were less forgiving of Untamed Heart’s flaws.  It opened in sixth place behind Loaded Weapon 1 which was in its second week in theaters.  It’s final gross was less than $20 million dollars.

slater - true romance
Christian Slater – True Romance – 1993

Later that year, Slater starred opposite Patricia Arquette in Tony Scott’s crime thriller, True Romance.

Slater played an employee at a comic book store who goes to a kung fu triple feature by himself on his birthday where he meets a girl played by Patricia Arquette.  They hit it off and end up going back to his apartment.  Arquette confesses that she is actually a call girl hired by his boss to show him a good time on his birthday.  I’ve never heard of comic book stores offering those kinds of benefits to their employees!

Since they are in love, Slater decides he wants to marry Arquette and take her away from her life of prostitution.  After consulting with a vision of Elvis (played by Val Kilmer), Slater decides to confront Arquette’s pimp (played by Gary Oldman).  The negotiation turns violent and Slater comes away with a briefcase full of drugs.  They decide to sell the drugs so they can run away together, but in order to do so they have to avoid a mobster played by Christopher Walken and two detectives played by Tom Sizemore and Chris Penn.  The cast also includes Brad Pitt, Michael Rapaport, Bronson Pinchot, James Gandolfini and Samuel L. Jackson.

True Romance started with a 50 page script by Roger Avery.  The script was titled The Open Road and it dealt with “an odd couple relationship between an uptight business man and an out-of-control hitch-hiker who travel into a Hellish mid-Western town together.”  When Avery got stuck, he handed the script to his friend, Quentin Tarantino, and asked him to see what he could do with it.  Several weeks later, Tarantino returned with 500 pages of hand-written notes that Avary called “the Bible of pop culture”.

Avary typed and edited the massive tome while consulting with Tarantino on story ideas.  Working together, they developed a single script for what would become Natural Born Killers and True Romance.  The first half of the script was about the serial killers, Mickey and Mallory.  They escape prison and decide to hunt down and kill a screenwriter who wrote a glitzy Hollywood movie based on their exploits.  The writer goes on the run from the two maniacs.  While hiding out, he writes True Romance.  Eventually, it became obvious that the project was too big to sell as a single movie, so Tarantino and Avary split in into two scripts.

Val Kilmer and Christian Slater - True Romance - 1993
Val Kilmer and Christian Slater – True Romance – 1993

Tarantino originally intended to direct True Romance himself, but ultimately he lost interest and sold the script instead.  He was paid $50,000 for True Romance which was the minimum amount allowable by the Writer’s Guild at the time.  Scott changed the script’s non-linear story structure and slapped on a happy ending.  Originally, Tarantino objected to Scott’s changes, but when he saw the final film he approved.

Once again, Slater began a relationship with his co-star.  He said that he and Arquette “got very close”.  He said that their love scene in the movie was “really special. I lost sight of the crew being around. It was the first time nothing on the outside really mattered.”  Unfortunately, Slater was dating aspiring screen-writer Nin Huang at the time.  The couple eventually split and in 1995, she sued Slater for palimony.

Despite glowing reviews, True Romance was a box office failure.  It opened in third place behind Undercover Blues which also opened that week.  During its entire theatrical run, True Romance grossed just over $12 million dollars failing to recoup its $13 million dollar budget.  Over time and with the rise of Tarantino, the movie has found an audience on video.

Christian Slater - MTV Video Music Awards - 1993
Christian Slater – MTV Video Music Awards – 1993

One week before the release of True Romance, Slater hosted the 10th Video Music Awards on MTV.  Pearl Jam took home the majority of awards including Video of the Year.  The Viewer’s Choice Award went to Aerosmith for Livin’ on the Edge and Stone Temple Pilots won Best New Artist.  Presenter Milton Berle pissed off co-presenter RuPaul by groping a breast,  Paul replied “So you used to wear gowns, but now you’re wearing diapers.”  Performers included Madonna, Sting, Soul Asylum, Naughty By Nature, Spin Doctors, REM and Janet Jackson.  The 90’s everyone!

This is emblematic of Slater’s celebrity status at the time.  Up to this point in his movie career, Slater had a supporting role in one box office hit.  Every other movie in his filmography to date has been a financial disappointment.  And yet, he was considered a big enough star to host an awards show even if it was on basic cable.  Slater may not have been a box office draw, but he was all kinds of early 90’s cool.

slater - jimmy hollywood
Christian Slater – Jimmy Hollywood – 1994

In 1994, Slater starred opposite Joe Pesci in Barry Levinson’s Hollywood crime comedy, Jimmy Hollywood.

Pesci played an unsuccessful actor who is growing frustrated with life in L.A.  He decides to do something about the city’s worsening crime problem.  After losing his job waiting tables, Pesci invents an alter ego and enlists the help of his spaced-out pal played by Slater.  They videotape criminals and hand the evidence over to the police forming a goofy vigilante team.

The critics panned Jimmy Hollywood.  Roger Ebert lamented that the movie’s interesting characters were stuck in such a plot-driven script.  “Here are characters who might have really amounted to something, and we can see the movie dying right under their feet.”  The movie failed to even crack the top ten when it was released.  It opened in an embarrassing 14th place behind Monkey Trouble which had already been in theaters for three weeks.

slater - interview with a vampire
Christian Slater – Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles – 1994

Later that year, Slater had a small role in Neil Jordan’s big screen adaptation of Anne Rice’s best-selling novel, Interview With the Vampire.

Brad Pitt starred as a vampire who decides to tell his life story to a human interviewer played by Slater.  Pitt was turned into a vampire in 1791 at the age of 24 by a flamboyant vampire played by  Tom Cruise.  Eventually, they “adopt” an orphaned girl played by Kirtsen Dunst and turn her into a vampire too.  Antonio Banderas and Stephen Rea played vampires they encounter in Paris in the 1870’s.

The casting of Cruise as the vampire Lestat upset the author and her fans.  In the books, the character is tall, thin and blonde.  He’s a David Bowie type.  Rice had been hoping for English actor Julian Sands.  But Sands was not a movie star.  Rice was very vocal of the studio’s decision to cast Cruise instead.  She commented that Cruise was “no more my vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler.”  After seeing Cruise’s performance, Rice retracted her criticism stating  “from the moment he appeared, Tom was Lestat for me.”

Originally, River Phoenix was cast as the human who interviews Brad Pitt’s character.  When Phoenix died of a drug overdose four weeks before filming, Slater, inherited the role.  Slater said he was acquainted with Phoenix, but did not know him well:

We’d met before and I respected him, and his work tremendously. That was so tragic, and it was really awkward to be stepping into that kind of scenario. But I think I eased my own discomfort by not accepting money for it and donating my salary to his charities.

Despite raves from Rice, reviews for Interview were tepid.  Roger Ebert gave the movie a thumbs up, but noted “My complaint about the film is that not very much happens, in the plot sense.”  Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that he was “dazzled but unmoved.”

Interview with the Vampire opened in first place at the box office and grossed over $100 million dollars in the US.  That sounds like a hit especially when you factor in that it grossed another $100 million overseas.  But with a big star like Cruise and a $60 million dollar budget, the studio considered the film a disappointment.  The plan had been to make a sequel featuring Cruise in the lead.  But based on the first movie’s box office performance those plans were cancelled.

Eventually, Rice’s third book, Queen of the Damned, was adapted for the big screen.  But none of the talent from Interview was involved in that movie.  Rice publicly disowned it.  There were plans to adapt Rice’s fourth book in the series, The Tale of the Body Thief.  But those plans fell apart over creative differences.  In 2014, Universal acquired the rights to the entire series of books.  So a reboot seems inevitable.

Christian Slater - Mugshot - 1994
Christian Slater – Mugshot – 1994

In 1994, Slater got into more legal trouble.  This time, he was arrested for trying to board a commercial plane with a Baretta pistol in his luggage.  He was sentenced to community service.

Christian Slater - Murder in the First - 1995
Christian Slater – Murder in the First – 1995

In 1995, Slater co-starred opposite Kevin Bacon and Gary Oldman in the courtroom drama, Murder in the First.

Bacon played a petty criminal who is sentenced to Alcatraz at the age of 17 for stealing $5 from a grocery store.  After a failed escape attempt, he is sentenced to solitary confinement where he is tortured for three years by the assistant warden played by Oldman.  When he is finally released from solitary into the general population, he kills a fellow inmate and is faced with murder charges.  Slater played an idealistic young lawyer who defends him.

As research, Bacon, Oldman and Slater spent some of their free time locked in jail cells before filming began.  Seems like Slater could have opted out of that exercise…

Murder in the First received mixed to negative reviews.  Roger Ebert said that Slater was “too young for this role, and not confident enough to dial down a little.”  The movie opened in fifth place at the box office behind Nobody’s Fool which was in its fifth week in theaters.  It grossed around $17 million on a $23 million dollar budget.  But on the upside, Slater was now 1 degree from Kevin Bacon.

Christian Slater - Bed of Roses - 1996
Christian Slater – Bed of Roses – 1996

In 1995, Slater tried romance once more opposite Mary Stuart Masterson in the drama, Bed of Roses.

Masterson starred as a career girl who is tired of being alone.  Slater played a shy florist who sends her flowers to cheer her up.  They end up dating, but each of them has some baggage they have to deal with in order to make their relationship work.

Bed of Roses was panned by critics.  Roger Ebert wrote that it “tells a sappy story about two sad sacks who get more or less what they deserve – each other.”  It opened in second place at the box office behind Mr. Holland’s Opus which had been in theaters for three weeks.  In the US, Bed of Roses grosses just under $20 million dollars.

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John Travolta and Christian Slater – Broken Arrow – 1996

Later that year, Slater starred opposite John Travolta in John Woo’s Broken Arrow.

Travolta and Slater played US Air Force pilots assigned to a top-secret exercise involving a stealth plane armed with two nuclear missiles.  Once the mission is completed successfully, Travolta turns on his co-pilot and leaves him stranded in the canyons of Utah.  Slater ends up teaming up with a park ranger played by his Pump Up the Volume and FernGully co-star, Samantha Mathis, to try to reclaim the stolen missiles from Travolta.

Travolta was offered his choice of roles.  He opted to play the bad guy.  Slater turned down an opportunity to work on Richard Donner’s Assassins in order to work with Woo on his second American movie.  Like Woo’s first American film, Hard Target, Broken Arrow ran into issues with the studio and the MPAA.  His original cut had a two-hour run-time and featured more character development and more violence.  The studio clipped the movie to under two hours and trimmed the violence in order to obtain an R-rating.

Slater recalled his first experience working with Woo:

I don’t know where John’s English is today, but at that time, he didn’t speak English that well, so our communication was limited. Basically, he told me I was supposed to be playing Steve McQueen and I forget who he said John Travolta was supposed to be, but that was all the direction I really got.

Originally, Broken Arrow was scheduled for a holiday release in 2014.  But due to re-edits and unfinished special effects, it was pushed back to February of the following year.  It opened to mostly negative reviews and has the distinction of being the only movie in history in which Gene Siskel reversed the direction of his thumb.  During their review show, Siskel gave Broken Arrow a thumbs up.  But after listening to his cohost’s arguments, Siskel was swayed and gave Broken Arrow the dreaded thumbs down.

Despite poor reviews, Broken Arrow opened in first place at the box office.  It ended up grossing $70 million dollars in the US which sounds good when you compare it to the grosses of Slater’s other movies.  But Travolta was on a roll at the time and his action movies were expected to cross the $100 million dollar mark.  With a budget estimated north of $50 million, Broken Arrow was a box office disappointment.

Christian Slater - Julian Po - 1997
Christian Slater – Julian Po – 1997

Slater starred in the 1997 drama, Julian Po.  Never heard of it?  Don’t worry.  You’re not alone.  Slater portrayed a suicidal young man who wanders into a small town looking to end it all.  The townspeople distrust him until they learn of his plans to kill himself.  Then they become strangely excited and even helpful.  He becomes a local celebrity until he meets a local girl played by Robin Tunney.  They fall in love and Slater decides that maybe he has a reason to live after all.  This angers the townspeople who were really looking forward to Slater’s suicide.  They begin trying to assist or even force him to kill himself.

Around this time, Slater got into his deepest legal trouble yet.  Slater was partying in an LA apartment with Marlon Brando’s daughter, Petra Brando, her date and a mutual friend, Michelle Jonas.  Slater was drinking tequila and snorting cocaine when he attacked Jonas.  According to the police, he punched Jonas in the face repeatedly and then bit Brando’s date when he tried to intervene.  He also kicked the building’s janitor.  When the police arrived, he attacked an officer and tried to grab his gun.

Slater described what he remembered from the incident:

I blanked on the whole thing. I went over to this place, consumed a lot of drugs and alcohol. The fight that happened was not between me and the girl at all, it was between me and this guy. After the fight, I tried to kill myself by jumping off the balcony. They pulled me back in. I made a mad dash for the door. I was trying to get out of there… I remember going to that apartment, walking out on the balcony on the fourteenth floor and having the thought go through my head. It scared me, and there was nobody there who I felt comfortable enough to talk about it with. I was already in an uncomfortable place. Then, once I started to imbibe, I acted on it. Not thinking clearly – not thinking at all! – having chemicals affecting my brain, I just wanted to end it. This was horrible – my night in hell. I was wiped out. Totally. Completely out of my mind.

Christian Slater - 1997
Christian Slater – 1997

He was sentenced to 90 days in jail, of which he served 59.  Slater was released early for good behavior which included washing police cars.  He ended up checking back into rehab.  Slater called the experience “rock bottom”:

I can’t think of any worse experience than the one I just went through. It was humiliating on a grand scale. The thing I’m sad about is that there were people there who got caught up with me hitting bottom… Man, when you have this level of insanity in your life, the press really rolls with it. I’ve been hurt, devastated, humiliated, ashamed, embarrassed – the whole thing. Finally I got to acceptance and surrender.

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Christian Slater – Hard Rain – 1998

In 1998, Slater starred opposite Morgan Freeman and Minnie Driver in the disaster film, Hard Rain.

Slater played an armored truck guard who gets robbed by Freeman.  He escapes with the money and hides it in a cemetery.  He hides from the thieves in a church and is knocked unconscious by a woman played by Driver who is in the process of restoring the church.  When he wakes, Slater finds himself in a jail cell where he is being held by the local sheriff played by Randy Quaid.  During all of this, the area is experiencing record-level rainstorms which eventually cause the dam to break and flood the town.

John Woo was originally attached to the project, but he backed off to direct Face/Off instead.  Slater could not promote Hard Rain because at the time of its release, he was doing hard time in jail.

The critics weren’t kind to Hard Rain.  Audiences didn’t like it either.  Hard Rain opened in 5th place at the box office coming in behind As Good as It Gets which was in the fourth week of its run.  It ended up grossing under $20 million dollars on a budget of $70 million dollars making Hard Rain one of the most expensive bombs of the year,

Christian Slater - Basil - 1998
Christian Slater – Basil – 1998

Basil starred Jared Leto as a British aristocrat who risks being disinherited by his father when he secretly marries a merchant’s daughter played by Claire Forlani.  Slater played Leto’s friend and confidant, a common who completes the film’s romantic triangle.  The movie was written and directed by Radha Bharadwaj based on an 1852 novel of the same name.  Bharadwaj’s director’s cut was selected to be the closing night film for the Toronto International Film Festival’s Special Presentation series but it was pulled from screening at the last minute.  The film’s financiers eventually released their own cut of the film on video.

slater - very bad things
Christian Slater – Very Bad Things – 1998

Later that year, Slater appeared as part of the ensemble in Peter Berg’s black comedy, Very Bad Things.

Jon Favreau starred as a groom who is about to marry a Cameron Diaz-type played by Cameron Diaz.  The movie flashes back to Favreau’s bachelor party which takes a homicidal turn when one of Favreau’s friends played by Jeremy Piven accidentally kills a hooker.  Things escalate from there as the friends decide to bury the body in the desert.  The ensemble cast included Daniel Stern, Slater and Jeanne Tripplehorn.

Very Bad Things was too dark for most critics.  Roger Ebert wrote “Very Bad Things isn’t a bad movie, just a reprehensible one.”  Audiences weren’t any more receptive to the black comedy.  It opened in 11th place at the box office behind the Jerry Springer movie, Ringmaster.  Very Bad Things equaled very bad box office grossing under $10 million dollars on a $30 million dollar budget.

Christian Slater - Side Man - 1998-1999
Christian Slater – Side Man – 1998-1999

As the 90’s came to a close, Slater’s once-promising movie career was cooling off.  As a child, he had appeared in four Broadway productions.  After The Music Man in 1980, Slater went on to appear in Copperfield in 1981, Macbeth in 1982 and Merlin in 1983.  Sixteen years later, Slater returned to Broadway in the drama, Side Man.  In the show, Slater played a talented but self-absorbed jazz trumpeter.

slater - the contender
Christian Slater – The Contender – 2000

In 2000, Slater had a supporting role in the political drama, The Contender.

Joan Allen starred as a senator who is nominated to become Vice President following the death of the previous holder of the office.  Jeff Bridges played the president who selects Allen.  Slater, Bridges and Allen all appeared together in Coppola’s Tucker.  Slater’s Murder in the First co-star, Gary Oldman, played a Republican senator who opposes Allen’s confirmation.  Slater played a young Democrat who sides with Oldman against Allen.

When The Contender was released, Oldman made some critical statements suggesting that Dreamworks had reedited the movie based on the studio’s pro-Democratic bias.  Dreamworks later claimed that the statements were “bastardized, kinda.” He clarified that his complaint was that the movie’s ending had been made less ambiguous during the editing process.

Reviews were largely positive, but audiences weren’t interested.  The Contender opened in fifth place at the box office behind duds like Lost Souls and The Ladies Man which also opened that week.  It failed to recoup its $20 million dollar budget in the US.

slater - 3000 miles to graceland
Christian Slater – 3,000 Miles to Graceland – 3001

In 2001, Slater reunited with his Robin Hood co-star, Kevin Costner, for the Elvis-themed heist movie, 3000 Miles to Graceland.

Costner and Kurt Russell starred as rival leaders of a gang that robs a casino during an Elvis impersonator convention.  They were joined by Slater, David Arquette and Bokeem Woodbine.  But after the heist is pulled, Costner turns on the rest of the gang.  Russell tries to get the marked loot to a money launderer played by Jon Lovitz while evading Costner.  a single mom played by Courtney Cox Arquette comes along for the ride.  Kevin Pollak and Thomas Hayden Church played U.S. Marshals investigating the crime.

Several years prior to co-starring in 3000 Miles, Costner and Russell starred in competing Wyatt Earp biopics.  Tombstone ended up beating out Costner’s Wyatt Earp.  Thier rivalry continued with 3000 Miles.  Russell and Costner disagreed over the tone of the movie.  So the studio let both stars edit their own version of the movie.  Russel’s cut focused more on the romantic comedy aspects between his character and Courtney Cox.  Costner’s version was heavy on the action.  The Costner cut won out.

Critics panned 3000 Miles.  Roger Ebert called out the movie’s split tone calling it, “A sour and mean-spirited enterprise so desperate to please, it tries to be a yukky comedy and a hard-boiled action picture at the same time.”  It opened in third place at the box office behind Down to Earth which was in its second week in theaters.  300 Miles ended up grossing just over $15 million dollars on a $62 million dollar budget making it a massive failure.

slater - windtalkers
Christian Slater – Windtalkers – 2002

In 2002, Slater finally reteamed with his Broken Arrow director, John Woo, on the World War II drama, Windtalkers.

Nicolas Cage starred as a Marine Corp Corporal who has recently returned to activity duty after losing his entire squad and sustaining grave injuries in a battle in the Pacific.  Cage and his men are tasked with protecting a code talker who is able to convey secret messages using a code based on Navajo language.  Adam Beach, Mark Ruffalo and Frances O’Connor co-starred.

Windtalkers was originally scheduled for release in summer of 2001.  But due to a variety of factors, it got pushed back to November.  But when the comedy Shallow Hal got moved to the same release date, MGM flinched and moved The Windtalkers to summer of 2002.

Critics were unimpressed by Woo’s take on the tale of the Navajo code talkers.  Amidst negative reviews, Windtalkers opened in third place at the box office behind Scooby Doo and The Bourne Identity.  It ended up grossing just over $40 million dollars on a budget of over $100 million.

Christian Slater - Who Is Cletis Tout? - 2002
Christian Slater – Who Is Cletis Tout? – 2002

Additionally, Slater starred in the Paramount Classics release Who Is Cletis Tout?

Slater played a criminal who assumes the identity of a photojournalist who is wanted by the mafia.  Tim Allen played a hit man who is obsessed with film noir.  Allen is sent to kill the man Slater is pretending to be.  Richard Dreyfus, Portia de Rossi and RuPaul co-starred.

Cletis Tout actually opened in Spain in late 2001.  In July 2002, it received a limited release in the US on 18 theaters.  The few critics who saw the movie didn’t like it.  It ended up grossing around a quarter of a million dollars.

Christian Slater - The West Wing - 2002
Christian Slater – The West Wing – 2002

On TV, Slater had a three-episode guest stint on the drama, The West Wing.  He played a naval submarine officer who is assigned to the White House to aide the National Security Advisor.  But really, he was there as a romantic interest for the character played by series regular Janel Moloney.  After Moloney accidentally votes Republican, she spends the entire day trying to convince a single Republican voter to vote for her party instead to cancel out her miscast vote.  She eventually meets Slater’s character who agrees to make the swap.  They dated briefly until he was transferred to Italy.

slater - hard cash
Christian Slater – Hard Cash – 2002

Rounding out 2002, Slater also starred opposite Val Kilmer, Darryl Hannah, Verne Troyer, and Bokeem Woodbine in the heist movie, Hard Cash (also known as Run for the Money).

Slater played a master thief just released from prison.  He puts together one last heist only to be busted by a corrupt FBI agent played by Kilmer.  Rather than arrest Slater, Kilmer wants in on some of that sweet hard cash.

Hard Cash was an omen of things to come for both Slater and Kilmer.  It went direct-to-video.

Christian Slater - Masked and Anonymous - 2003
Christian Slater – Masked and Anonymous – 2003

In 2003, Slater was one of several celebrities to appear in Larry Charles’ comedy-drama, Masked and Anonymous.  The movie starred and was co-written by musician Bob Dylan.  Both Dylan and Charles used pen-names for their writing credits.  Dylan played a singer who is released from prison to perform a benefit concert to save North American society.  The cast included John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, Penélope Cruz, Val Kilmer, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Bruce Dern, Cheech Marin, Ed Harris, Chris Penn, and Slater as Crew Guy #1.  As you could probably guess from the picture, Penn played Crew Guy #2.

Christian Slater - Alias - 2003
Christian Slater – Alias – 2003

On TV, Slater did a two-episode guest appearance on the spy show, Alias.  He played a brilliant mathematician who was kidnapped by Lena Olin.  In the second season of the show, Olin had a recurring role as Jennifer Garner’s mother whom she had previously believed to be dead.

Ryan Haddon Slater - Mugshot - 2003
Ryan Haddon Slater – Mugshot – 2003

Also in 2003, Slater had another brush with the law.  But this time, he was the one being assaulted.  Slater and his wife got into a fight in a Las Vegas hotel room.  Slater’s wife, Ryan Haddon, reportedly threw a glass bottle which gashed Slater’s neck.  Witnesses reported that Slater stumbled out of an elevator at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas bleeding and sating “My wife’s fucking crazy.”  Haddon was arrested and Slater was taken to the emergency room for stitches.  Slater later claimed it was all an accident and charges were never pressed against his wife.

Christian Slater - The Good Shepherd/The Confessor - 2004
Christian Slater – The Good Shepherd/The Confessor – 2004

The next movie in Slater’s filmography is The Good Shepherd which is also known as The Confessor.  And I’m going to confess something right up front.  We’re entering the long, dark direct-to-video stage of Slater’s career.  This is where release dates start to get really messy.  For example, both The Confessor and Mindhunters opened in some countries in 2004.  But they both took a while before being released to video in the U.S.  So I’m just going to put it out there that depending what part of the world you live in, the release dates of some of these direct-to-video movies is negotiable.

In The Confessor, Slater played a priest who comes to believe that a young priest accused of murder may actually be innocent.  He is aided by a journalist played by Molly Parker who also happens to be his ex-girlfriend.

Christian Slater - Pursued - 2004
Christian Slater – Pursued – 2004

In Pursued, Slater played a headhunter who will stop at nothing to recruit an inventor played by Gil Bellows.  Estella Warren played Bellows’ wife whom Slater isn’t above killing if he has to.

Christian Slater - Churchill: The Hollywood Years - 2004
Christian Slater – Churchill: The Hollywood Years – 2004

If I made a list of actors you might consider to play Winston Churchill, odds are Slater would rank near the bottom of the list.  But play Churchill he did in the satire, Churchill: The Hollywood Years.  Well, sort of.  The movie posits an alternate history in which the British Prime Minister was actually an actor and the real Winston Churchill was a US Marine played by Slater.  Neve Campbell co-stars as Princess Elizabeth, Miranda Richardson played Eva Braun and Anthony Sher portrayed Hitler who plans to marry into British royalty.  The cast is filled with english comics most of whom I have never heard of.

Christian Slater -One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - 2004
Christian Slater -One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – 2004

Roughly ten years after he was hailed as his generation’s Jack Nicholson, Slater took on one of Nicholson’s best-remembered roles.  He played Randle McMurphy in an English revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  Slater said he had to be careful not to do a Nicholson impression:

It was tricky, and obviously I was scared of unconsciously imitating Nicholson’s performance. So I stayed away from the movie. I’d seen it of course, but not in years. I read the book, and that really provided me with my own source material for that character, and it’s a great character. Plus the book and the play are quite different from the movie, in terms of it being from the Chief’s point-of-view.

The play was well-received and Slater would reprise the role two years later.

Christian Slater - Mindhunters - 2005
Christian Slater – Mindhunters – 2005

Renny Harlin’s Mindhunters was a thriller about a bunch of FBI students who were undergoing training as profilers.  Val Kilmer played the students’ instructor who employs some unconventional and highly realistic training techniques.  Kilmer isolates the students on a small island to finish their training.  They were joined by an observer played by LL Cool J.  Eventually, the inhabitants of the island start getting killed off and the students have to solve the murders,

Mindhunters was filmed in 2002 and then sat on a shelf for several years as part of the Disney-Miramax divorce.  When the dust settled, Mindhunters was dumped into theaters with very little marketing support.  It flopped in Europe in 2004 before bombing in the US in 2005.

Christian Alster - Alone in the Dark - 2005
Christian Slater – Alone in the Dark – 2005

Any time you see a Uwe Boll movie in a What the Hell Happened article, you know we have hit the rock bottom stage of the career.  Or at least you hope that is the case.  Cause that’s where we are now.  Slater starred opposite Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff in Boll’s adaptation of the video game Alone in the Dark.  That’s gotta be rock bottom, right?  Reid, Dorff, Boll, video game adaptation… there’s not a promising word in that sentence.

Slater played a detective who specializes in mysteries of the supernatural variety.  Reid played Slater’s ex who also happens to be the curator of the city’s Museum of Natural History which is displaying several artifacts that relate to Slater’s research.  Dorff played a guy who looked a lot like Christian Slater, but was never quite as famous.

Writer Blair Erickson came up with the original draft for the movie which he claims was more realistic with touches of Lovecraftian horror.  But when Boll took over, he had the script rewritten to suit his strengths as a director.  Erickson blasted Boll for the changes he made to the script:

Dr. Boll was able to hire his loyal team of hacks to crank out something much better than our crappy story and add in all sorts of terrifying horror movie essentials like opening gateways to alternate dimensions, bimbo blonde archaeologists, sex scenes, mad scientists, slimy dog monsters, special army forces designed to battle slimy CG dog monsters, Tara Reid, “Matrix” slow-motion gun battles, and car chases. Oh yeah, and a ten-minute opening back story scroll read aloud to the illiterate audience, the only people able to successfully miss all the negative reviews. I mean hell, Boll knows that’s where the real scares lie.

Critics had a competition to see who could write the most scathing review of Alone in the Dark.  Entertainment Weekly said it was “so bad it’s postmodern”.  But for my money, the best quote comes from the Toronto Star which wrote:

Alone in the Dark is so awful, anyone who spends 10 bucks seeing it ought to get 11 bucks change and a written apology from the director and cast.

The news wasn’t any better at the box office where Alone in the Dark failed to crack the top ten.  It opened in twelfth place behind The Phantom of the Opera which had been in theaters for six weeks.  It ended up grossing about $5 million in the US or roughly 25% of its production costs.

Christian Slater - The Deal - 2005
Christian Slater – The Deal – 2005

In The Deal, Slater played a Wall Street advisor looking to strike a deal with the CEO of an oil company played by Robert Loggia.  Just to clarify, Loggia played the CEO, not the company.  Slater’s character hires an idealistic environmentalist played by Selma Blair and then crushes her hopes and dream by making out with her in an elevator.  Or so I assume based on the picture above.  Critics complained that The Deal was both dull and confusing.  It grossed just $20 thousand dollars during a limited engagement.  But at least it wasn’t a Uwe Boll movie.

Christian Slater - The Glass Menagerie - 2005
Christian Slater – The Glass Menagerie – 2005

Slater returned to the Broadway stage in a revival of Tennessee Williams’s classic, The Glass Menagerie.  Slater co-starred with future American Horror Story regulars Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson.  Reviews for the production were mixed with several critics complaining that Lange and especially Slater were miscast.  Slater gave off too much of a macho vibe for the sensitive poet he was playing according to critics.

Christian Slater - Arrested - 2005
Christian Slater – Arrested – 2005

While Slater was appearing in The Glass Menagerie, he was arrested for allegedly grabbing a woman’s butt.  As Slater was being loaded into the backseat of the police car, he told onlookers “I didn’t so anything.  This is bulshit!”  He was charged with third degree sexual abuse.  Slater was held by the police, but denied the charges.  They were eventually dismissed on the condition that Slater stay out of trouble for six months.

Not quite six months later, Slater fell off a roof while attending a party thrown by Paris Hilton.  When some of Hilton’s neighbors complained about the noise level, Slater decided to climb their building to see who was making the complaints.  He fell from the roof into the bushes.  Fortunately the embarrassing incident did not result in any further legal trouble for Slater.

slater - BOBBY
Christian Slater – Bobby – 2006

In 2006, Slater appeared as part of an ensemble in the historical drama, Bobby.

Bobby was written and directed by Slater’s Young Guns 2 co-star, Emilio Estevez.  The fictional retelling of the final hours of Bobby Kennedy keeps popping up in WTHH articles.  It co-stars Heather Graham, Helen Hunt, Demi Moore, Lindsay Lohan and Sharon Stone.  According to Slater, the cast really brought their A-game to support Estevez:

It was like a who’s-who of talent. Everybody showed up on that giving 150%, we were all so proud of Emilio who, in my opinion, knocked it out of the park.

Christian Slater - Hollow Man 2 - 2006
Christian Slater – Hollow Man II – 2006

In 2006, Slater co-starred in a direct-to-video sequel to Hollow Man.  In Hollow Man II, Slater played a soldier who is turned invisible in a science experiment exactly like the one in the first movie only with much less expensive special effects.  Except for the special effects footage which was recycled from the first film.  Those are obviously exactly the same.

Christian Slater - My Name is Earl
Christian Slater – My Name is Earl – 2006

Slater capped off the year with a guest spot on the sitcom, My Name is Earl.  Slater played a stoner who was robbed by Jason Lee.  Years later, Lee has won the lottery and wants to return Slater’s air conditioner.  But Slater lives on a commune and is too environmentally conscious for such things.  Instead, he invites Lee to spend a week at the commune where he and his brother learn about environmentalism.

Christian Slater - He Was a Quiet Man - 2007
Christian Slater – He Was a Quiet Man – 2007

In the drama, He Was a Quiet Man, Slater played an office worker who plans to go postal on his place of employment.  But he drops a bullet while he is loading his gun.  While Slater is on the floor searching for the dropped ammunition, one of his co-workers starts shooting up the place.  This allows Slater to play the hero and save a cute co-worker played by Elisha Cuthbert.  William H. Macy co-starred.  He Was a Quiet Man received an extremely limited release topping out at three theaters.  Reviews were mixed to positive, but it earned just over two thousand dollars.  For all intents and purposes, this was a direct to video movie.

Christian Slater - Slipstream - 2007
Christian Slater – Slipstream – 2007

Later that year, Slater appeared in the comedy Slipstream which was written, directed and likely catered by Anthony Hopkins.  Hopkins starred in the movie as a writer hired to rewrite the script for a detective movie.  But his mind starts playing tricks on him as the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred.  John Turturro, Camryn Manheim and Jeffrey Tambor also appeared.  The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where most critics thought it was weird.

Christian Slater - Love Lies Bleeding - 2008
Christian Slater – Love Lies Bleeding – 2008

In the direct-to-video thriller, Love Lies Bleeding, Slater played a corrupt DEA Agent who is after a cache of dirty money.  When an innocent young couple stumble upon the money in their apartment building, they decide to try to use it to create a better life for themselves.  But Slater pursues them to recover the money for himself.

slater - my own worst enemy
Christian Slater – My Own Worst Enemy – 2008

By 2008, Slater had been out of the public eye for quite a while.  He had done a few TV guest spots, but his last mainstream movie was Windtalkers in 2002.  So it’s only natural that Slater decided to give TV a try.  In My Own Worst Enemy, Slater played a secret agent who is unaware he is living a dual life.  As Henry, he is a middle-class efficiency expert married to Mädchen Amick with two kids.  But as Edward, he is a dangerous man trained to kill for a secret government agency.  His kids were played by Bella Thorne and Taylor Lautner.  The cast also included Alfre Woodard, Saffron Burrows and James Cromwell.

After airing only nine episodes, NBC canceled My Own Worst Enemy due to low ratings.  But Slater would have more opportunities at TV stardom.

Christian Slater - Dolan's Cadillac - 2009
Christian Slater – Dolan’s Cadillac – 2009

Slater played a hit-man in the 2009 direct-to-video adaptation of the Stephen King short story, Dolan’s Cadillac.  Wes Bentley and Emmanuelle Vaugier played a couple who witness Slater’s handiwork.  They ignore Slater’s warning not to go to the police with what they know, so Slater blows up their car with Vaugier in it.  Bentley decides to hunt the gangster down and exact his vengeance.

Cuba Gooding Jr. and Christian Slater - Lies and Illusions - 2009
Cuba Gooding Jr. and Christian Slater – Lies and Illusions – 2009

Later that year, it was Slater’s turn to be terrorized by a gangster.  In Lies and Illusions, Slater played a self-help author who gets mixed up in a search for missing diamonds.  Cuba Gooding Jr. played the mobster who is convinced that Slater knows their whereabouts.

Christian Slater - the Forgotten - 2009-2010
Christian Slater – the Forgotten – 2009-2010

Later that year, Slater got his second chance at a regular TV series on the ABC drama, The Forgotten.  Slater played the leader of a group of amateur detectives who try to figure out the identities of murder victims who are unable to be identified by the authorities.  Seventeen episodes were filmed but the show was cancelled before they had all aired.  The finale was shown in March of 2010 with two episodes left to air.  ABC burned off the final two episodes during the summer months when ratings are low.

Christian Slater - Breaking In - 2011-2012
Christian Slater – Breaking In – 2011-2012

In 2011, Slater got his third TV show in as many years.  Breaking In was a sitcom about a group of geniuses and thieves who work at a high tech security firm.  They are hired by companies to find the flaws in their security systems.  Slater played the boss, a former thief and counterfeiter who enjoys manipulating his employees.  Breaking In debuted in April of 2011 as a mid-season replacement.  Initially, Fox announced the show’s cancellation in May.  But then in a reversal of fortune, Breaking In was actually renewed for a second season.  After a total of 20 episodes between the two seasons, Breaking In was retired for good.

Cuba Gooding Jr. and Christian Slater - Sacrifice - 2011
Cuba Gooding Jr. and Christian Slater – Sacrifice – 2011

Slater reunited with Cuba Gooding Jr. for the video-on-demand thriller, Sacrifice.  Gooding played am undercover cop haunted by the loss of his family.  Slater played a priest who assists Gooding on a case and in trying to find redemption.  Gooding comes to Slater for help when a repentant drug dealer leaves his five-year-old daughter in his care.

Christian Slater - Without Men - 2011
Christian Slater – Without Men – 2011

Without Men was a comedy starring former Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria the leader of a group of women in a remote Latin American mountain village.  The men of the village have all been forcibly recruited to fight in a civil war leaving the women to fend for themselves.  Slater played an American journalist who comes to the village to discover an all-female utopia.

Christian Slater - The River Murders - 2011
Christian Slater – The River Murders – 2011

I know what you’re thinking.  Slater has made movies with direct-to-video regulars like Val Kilmer and Cuba Gooding Jr.  But where the heck are Ray Liotta and Ving Rhames?  Don’t worry.  Slater starred with Liotta and Rhames in the direct-to-video thriller, The River Mruders.  Liotta starred as a detective investigating a series of murders (presumably on or near a river).  As the investigation continues, it becomes clear that all the victims are women Liotta has slept with.  Slater played an FBI agent who takes over the case when Liotta becomes the prime suspect.

Christian Slater - Playback - 2012
Christian Slater – Playback – 2012

2012 was a direct-to-video smorgasbord for Slater.  It started with the horror movie, Playback, in which Slater played a cop who pays a high school student to set up spy cameras to record teen age girls privately.  The teens who get caught on camera become possessed by an evil spirit.

Christian Slater - Freaky Deaky - 2012
Christian Slater – Freaky Deaky – 2012

Freaky Deaky was adapted from an Elmore Leonard novel of the same name.  Slater played a sixties radical with a background in explosives.  He and his partner set their sites on a couple of rich brothers played by Crispin Glover and Andy Dick.  Meanwhile, Glover is being investigated for rape charges.  Michael Jai White played the brothers’ bodyguard.  Freaky Deaky was directed by Charles Matthau, son of Walter Matthau.

Christian Slater - El Gringo - 2012
Christian Slater – El Gringo – 2012

In the crime drama, El Gringo, Scott Adkins played a DEA agent who crosses the border into Mexico with a satchel full of money.  Everyone is after his money including local criminals and law enforcement.  Slater played his former boss who hunts him down.

Christian Slater - Dawn Rider - 2012
Christian Slater – Dawn Rider – 2012

Slater returned to the old West in Dawn Rider which co-starred Jill Hennessy and Donald Sutherland.  Slater played a cowboy set on avenging the death of his pa.

Christian Slater - Hatfields and McCoys: Bad Blood - 2012
Christian Slater – Hatfields and McCoys: Bad Blood – 2012

Slater played Governor Bramlette trapped between feuding families lead by Jeff Fahey and Perry King in the direct-to-video drama, Hatfields and McCoys: Bad Blood.  The movie was released on the heels of a popular Hatfield and McCoys mini-series starring Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton.  Here’s a clip from the gritty Bad Blood.  

Christian Slater - Soldiers of Fortune - 2012
Christian Slater – Soldiers of Fortune – 2012

In Soldiers of Fortune, Slater played a soldier who is dishonorably discharged when a CIA operative screws up his mission.  Four years later, Slater is presented with an opportunity to lead a group of mercenaries against a dictatorship.  Initially he passes.  But when he finds out that the dictator’s military is run by the former CIA operative who got him dishonorably discharged, Slater takes the job.  Sean Bean, James Cromwell, Ving Rhames and Dominic Monaghan co-starred.

Christian Slater - Assassin's Bullet - 2012
Christian Slater – Assassin’s Bullet – 2012

In Assassin’s Bullet, Slater played a former FBI agent who left the service after the death of his wife.  Donald Sutherland played a U.S. Ambassador who persuades Slater to return to work to catch an assassin who is killing off terrorists from America’s Most Wanted list.

That’s gotta be it for 2012, right?  I mean, Slater was still on Breaking In for part of the year.  How many direct-to-video movies can a guy squeeze into a twelve month period?  I’ll allow for one more but only if he can co-star with direct-to-video stalwarts Wes Bentley and Stephen Dorff.

Christian Slater - Rites of Passage - 2012
Christian Slater – Rites of Passage – 2012

Rites of Passage pulled off that DTV trifecta by casting Slater as a crystal meth cook, Bentley as a psychotic drug addict and Stephen Dorff as a college professor who sleeps with his students and brings his anthropology class to an ancient Indian burial ground so that there can be a movie.  Because otherwise Slater would have only been in like half a dozen direct-to-video movies that year.  One more and he gets a free sub.

Christian Slater - Guns, Girls and Gambling - 2012
Christian Slater – Guns, Girls and Gambling – 2012

Slater earned that free sandwich with the crime-comedy, Guns, Girls and Gambling which combined elements of every single movie in Slater’s career including but not limited to an Elvis impersonator played by Gary Oldman.  Apparently Oldman felt left out of 3000 Miles to Graceland.  Guns, Girls and Gambling was shot in 2010 and then sat on a shelf.  It was released in Australia in 2012, but didn’t make it to the US until the following year.  Hey, I think Slater owes us a sub!

slater - bullet to the head

In 2013, Slater returned to the big screen opposite Sylvester Stallone in Walter Hill’s action film, Bullet to the Head.

Stallone played a hit-man who teams up with a cop to avenge the deaths of their partners.  Slater played a lawyer with information Stallone needs.

Bullet to the Head was supposed to demonstrate that Stallone’s comeback was bigger than The Expendables.  Instead, it confirmed that outside of The Expendables, Stallone could not deliver at the box office.

Reviews were mixed and the movie was an embarrassing flop.  It opened in 6th place at the box office behind Zero Dark Thirty which had been in theaters for nearly two months.

Christian Slater - Assassins Run - 2013
Christian Slater – Assassins Run – 2013

And then it was back to direct-to-vid movies.  In Assassins Run (which was not a sequel to Assassin’s Bullet), Slater played the husband of a beautiful Russian ballerina.  When he is murdered (ooops, spoilers I guess) and their daughter kidnapped, Sofya Skya puts her ballerina skills to use kicking ass.

Christian Slater - Stranded - 2013
Christian Slater – Stranded – 2013

In Stranded, Slater played one of four astronauts on a remote mining base who is terrorized by an alien life form.  Any similarity to Alien is strictly because they ripped it off.  Stranded was co-written and directed by Roger Christian, the director of the infamous John Travolta bomb, Battlefield Earth.  So if you ever wondered what Alien would be like if it was directed by the guy who made Battlefield Earth and starred a late career Christian Slater, this is the movie for you.

Christian Slater - Nymphomaniac - 2014
Christian Slater – Nymphomaniac – 2014

In 2014, Slater appeared in Lars von Trier’s erotic drama, Nymphomaniac.  The five-and-a-half-hour movie was divided into two volumes.  The winding plot is about a self-diagnosed nymphomaniac who tells her life story to a man played by Stellan Skarsgård.  Slater played the protagonist’s father in flashback scenes.  the cast included Charlotte Gainsbourg, Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman and Willem Dafoe.

Von Trier’s movies tend to be love-them-or-hate-them affairs.  Most critics liked Vol 1 but reviews for Vol 2 were mixed.

Christian Slater - Ask Me Anything - 2014
Christian Slater – Ask Me Anything – 2014

Slater also appeared in the drama, Ask Me Anything.  Britt Robertson starred as a free-spirited girl who takes a year off between high school and college to find herself.  So she does what anyone would do.  She starts a blog.  Only instead of chronicling the careers of washed up celebrities, Robertson writes about her sexual misadventures.  I guess some people might be interesting in reading about that sort of thing.  Justin Long, Martin Sheen and Robert Patrick co-starred.

Christian Slater - Way of the Wicked - 2014
Christian Slater – Way of the Wicked – 2014

In Way of the Wicked, Slater played a priest who believes that a local teen may be the Anti-Christ.  The devilish teenager has a thing for the daughter of a local police detective.  Slater tries to convince the girl’s father that he should not let his daughter date the living embodiment of evil.

Christian Slater - Mind Games - 2014
Christian Slater – Mind Games – 2014

On TV, Slater starred opposite Steve Zahn on the drama, Mind Games.  Zahn played a bipolar genius in human psychology.  Slater played his brother, a slick ex-con.  Together they form a business in which they solve problems for their clients employing psychological manipulation.  Only five of thirteen episodes were aired before ABC cancelled the show.

Christian Slater - Archer - 2014-2015
Christian Slater – Archer – 2014-2015

I have skipped over a lot of Slater’s voice work between Ferngully and Archer because non e of it was really significant.  But it’s worth mentioning that in 2014, Slater joined the cast of the animated spy comedy, Archer.  He played a shady arms dealer named Slater who looks a lot like Christian Slater.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Christian Slater - Two and a Half Men - 2015
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Christian Slater – Two and a Half Men – 2015

Slater also appeared in the series finale of the long-running sitcom, Two and a Half Men.  Arnold Schwarzenegger played a cop who investigates the possibility that Charlie Sheen’s character might still be alive.  The whole thing is an excuse for a ton of meta commentary on Sheen and the show itself.  Slater shows up as himself after Schwarzenegger mistakes him for Charlie.

Christian Slater - Mr. Robot - 2015
Christian Slater – Mr. Robot – 2015

After numerous failed TV shows (four by my rough count), Slater finally landed a recurring role on a successful show.  The thriller, Mr. Robot, was renewed by the USA Network prior to the series premiere!  Rami Malek starred as a hacker with anxiety disorder and chronic depression.  Slater played an anarchist who recruits him to an underground group of hackers.  Mr. Robot was very well reviewed by critics.  So hopefully Slater can spend some time working on the show and lay off the direct-to-video movies for a while…

So, what the hell happened?

People also point out that Slater’s mom got him into the business.  Sure, having a casting director for a mother is definitely a leg-up in a competitive business.  A lot of celebrities had connections to show biz either through family or friends.  Nepotism is a thing.  I don’t hold that against Slater or anyone else.  Of course if you have a family member who can get you a job, you’re going to make the most of that opportunity.  At the end of the day, Slater’s mom got him a foot in the door.  He’s had to do the work himself.

The weird thing is, Slater was never really a big movie star.  It seemed like he was because in the 90’s he was all over the place.  He was hosting Saturday Night Live and dating Hollywood starlets.  He was in movies, but he never starred in a hit.  Even the movies that people like and remember like Heathers and True Romance weren’t hits at the time.  So while Slater had the trappings of a movie star, he never really had the box office clout to back that title up.

The question here is why Slater could never capitalize on the buzz he had early on in his career.  Certainly his legal problems didn’t help.  It’s one thing to star in a flop like Hard Rain.  But a big part of that movie’s problem was that Slater couldn’t promote its release because he was in jail.  If you were considering casting Slater in a big budget action movie, you had to risk the possibility that he might be more of a liability than an asset.

These days, Slater is working steadily.  But the days of starring in big projects are long gone and he’s been relegated to direct-to-video movies and TV shows.  He seems to have found his stride with the success of Mr. Robot.  Hopefully he can ride that out for a while before returning to DTV thrillers.

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seandaniel1966
11 years ago

Wow. Finally, I get Slater here (I’ve been waiting a decade for you to get to him)….only to realize his career has sucked. Sad, too, ’cause he’s a likable, funny actor.

seandaniel1966
11 years ago

I didn’t know True Romance or Kuffs tanked. So, his only real hit was Broken Arrow – which I hated.

seandaniel1966
11 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

Hmmm. You were right then. He never got to Kilmer level. I didn’t realize that until this article. You are ruining all of my childhood heros…thanks. BTW, I liked that show Breaking In…but never saw the others.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  seandaniel1966

True Romance (1993) http://officialfan.proboards.com/thread/537326/true-romance-1993 Post by agent817 on 9 hours ago What are your thoughts on this film? I remember I first watched this movie in 2001 after buying a VHS of it (Oh man, the moments when I buy a movie without having seen it first), but what led me to watch this was that I remember looking at the Kids-in-Mind website and noticing the ratings of how profane and violent it was. I wondered to myself just how high is the violence rate in the film, so I bought it and watched it that same day. I remember… Read more »

daffystardust
Editor
11 years ago

My wife and I were visiting my folks and we decided to rent a movie. At the video store, we ran across “The Name of the Rose.” Lynn said she’d seen it and it was pretty good. It had Sean Connery and F Murray Abraham and it was historical. That seemed to make it reasonably safe. My folks were using a VCR that did not have an operating remote, but we tend not to pause too much when we’re there, anyway. The bigger problem was that it turned out that Lynn had seen an ‘edited for TV’ version of the… Read more »

daffystardust
Editor
11 years ago

“Heathers” is one of the signature films of our generation. Very dark, but very funny. “Very Bad Things” only managed the former. A friend of mine actually claims to judge prospective friends or boyfriends based on whether they appreciate “Heathers.” I wouldn’t go that far, but you’d need a pretty good explanation for not liking it. 5 great lines/moments: – “Grow up, Heather, bulimia’s so ’87.” – “Whether to kill yourself or not is one of the most important decisions a teenager can make.” – “I love my dead gay son!” “Wonder how he’d react if his son had a… Read more »

amandalovesmovies
11 years ago

He was so big in the early 90s and I could never figure out why he was famous. It seemed like the only movie worth getting excited about was Heathers.

Jake
Jake
11 years ago

As much as it helped Slater in “Heathers” & ” Pump Up the Volume,” I’d say that his Jack-schtick may have ended up being a double-edged sword because (consciously or not) Slater seemed to take that persona and run with it, without realizing that impersonating another legend can only take you so far before audiences remember there’s no subsitute for the real thing.
I’ve heard Tom Hanks being compared to Jimmy Stewart, but Hanks never seemed to imitate Stewart the way Slater imitated Jack.

tbob1
11 years ago

I enjoyed The Name of the Rose and feel it was prob his best role. I haven’t seen most of these films you mention including Heathers so don’t know for sure. I’m sure he’s best known for Robin Hood and Broken Arrow neither of which was stellar. He’s an ok actor (B-/C+ territory at best) but should have stuck w/ light comedy or wise cracking side kick type roles. Wasn’t he the one they brought on Mon Night Football several years ago in an attempt to boost ratings by having HWood types on the show and he totally bombed? As… Read more »

daffystardust
Editor
11 years ago

I actually liked Dennis Miller on MNF.

When asked about all the people who were just hoping he would fail, Miller said:

“I’ve got more folks waitin’ in the weeds for me than Atticus Finch’s kids.”
“I’m goin’ tonight dressed as a ham.”

freaking classic.

seandaniel1966
11 years ago

Watching Rocknrolla tonight, while reviewing The Mummy.

Two suggestions: Thandie Newton and Brendan Fraser. Newton is SO hot, and in 1999, Fraser was the next action hero….and we saw how that worked out.

daffystardust
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

Fraser is a really interesting case. I almost feel like he wasted his matinee idol good looks by being such a goof. Watch some of his dramas, and it’s clear that he could’ve had a career as a modern American Cary Grant. Maybe he just never could find the right series of roles, but he just was unable to shake the dippy comedy stuff and at some point even when he attempted to be serious, you just kind of expected him to do a pratfall at any second. If you’ve seen his appearances on “Scrubs” you know that his humour… Read more »

seandaniel1966
11 years ago

Actually, Fraser did indeed ruin his perception with some awful script choices. I think maybe he stepped into a persona with Airheads…and never stepped out. But he can act. I remember his performance in Blast from the Past as quite sweet and smart. Not the movie itself, bleck.

What’s wrong with The Mummy?

seandaniel1966
11 years ago

Good Lord, I’d forgotten about Encino Man! I hated that movie.

As for The Mummy, ha! Everything you hated is why some of us go see escapism popcorn flicks.

But I will add your opinion to my review. As a side note, the film was a breakout for Vosloo and Djalili.

seandaniel1966
11 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

It was in development hell for years. It’s not the movie anyone wanted to make.

seandaniel1966
11 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

I’m about to finish the article, but I’ve been lazy. I agree about Sommers, but let’s face it, Van Helsing was just embarrassingly bad…really, really bad. So bad my retinas had to be surgically reattached after watching it. The Mummy is not that bad.

seandaniel1966
11 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

Thanks. Gotta say, though, Sommers has made some truly bad films. You should check it out before your Fraser article. And Blast from the Past. (a very silly but likable movie)

Dudley Do-Right or George of the Jungle? I wouldn’t wish those movies on my worst enemy.

I do have a theory that the only DVDs available in Hell are the above films, plus Gigli and Battlefield Earth. Ha! Maybe From Justin to Kelly, too.

xxadverbxx
11 years ago

Queen of the Damned (film) really was a mix of plot lines from both Queen of the Damned and The Vampire Lestat. Both books of course were highly butchered and the only good thing the film had was the soundtrack. As for Interview, it was the first thing I saw with Slater in it… Very Bad Things I remember played on TV during the time The Hangover went off. It kind of seems The Hangover took many ideas from Very Bad Things, but kept them far less… well dark. For me (and probably many others) it started off somewhat comedic/promising,… Read more »

Terrence Michael Clay
10 years ago
Reply to  xxadverbxx

It’s funny that “Very Bad Things” and “Heathers” were in essence “darker & edgier” versions and forerunners to “The Hangover” and “Mean Girls” respectively. “The Hangover” can be considered a cross between “Very Bad Things” and “Dude, Where’s My Car?” if “Mean Girls” is more or less, a cross between “Heathers” and “Clueless”.

Jake
Jake
11 years ago

“And Alone in the Dark is known as one of (Boll’s) lesser films.”

That’s saying a lot. Just like saying “Threshold” is one of Star Trek: Voyager’s worst episodes.

Terrence Michael Clay
11 years ago

I wonder if part of Christian Slater’s problems is that he just never really appealed (or had “mass-market appeal”) to a wide-range of audiences (and thus, was never really a big box office draw). When he was younger (like around the time he did “Heathers” and shortly there afterward), it was mostly teenage girls. Plus, he starred in some back-to-back flops in the early ’90s, (some of which are now considered cult classics like “Pump Up The Volume” and “True Romance”). You can also argue that Christian was partially shunned by Hollywood due to his various run-ins w/ the law.… Read more »

Terrence Michael Clay
10 years ago

COMMENTARY TRACKS OF THE DAMNED:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/alone-in-the-dark,22310/

Crimes
Opening with the world’s longest crawl, but still requiring lengthy exposition and numerous flashbacks

Creating a scenario so daft that the casting of glassy-eyed party girl Tara Reid as a brainiac museum employee seems sensible

Inexplicably hiring two lead actors (Christian Slater and Stephen Dorff) whose Jack Nicholson-as-callow-Brat-Packer routines essentially cancel each other out

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Re: Actors whose careers you would have thought would have been bigger

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=46458824&postcount=41

Christian Slater would have been a bigger star if he didn’t get blacklisted from Hollywood for several years. He was a big coke dealer to the younger (at the time) Hollywood crowd and supposedly got a lot of them hooked. Just about all of the Brat Pack bought from him.

Terrence Michael Clay
11 years ago

FRC’s Fallen Icon #5 – Christian Slater: http://www.frontroomcinema.com/frcs-fallen-icon-5-christian-slater/ What went wrong? It was the success of Slater’s career that led to his downward spiral, the excesses of his growing fame caused a number of run-ins with the law and whilst his acting career continued to thrive up until the mid nineties the film offers eventually began to dry up. His first serious encounter with the police took place in 1989 when he drunkenly tried to outrun them in his car, hit a lamp-post and ended up kicking an officer. Nice work Slater. Future events in the mid nineties led him… Read more »

Terrence Michael Clay
11 years ago

Reading the stuff about Helen Slater and the ill-fated “Supergirl” movie, I can’t help but think that Faye Dunaway would make a good future “WTHTT” subject. As this video review of “Supergirl” would point out, there are two distinct periods in Faye’s career, BEFORE “Mommy Dearest” (i.e. “Bonnie & Clyde”, “Chinatown”, and “Network”) and AFTER “Mommy Dearest” (e.g. “Supergirl”, where she was pretty much playing a comic book variation of her hammy Joan Crawford portrayal and “Dunston Checks In”):
http://haphazard-stuff.blogspot.com/2013/02/superhero-films-supergirl-1984.html

Terrence Michael Clay
11 years ago

10 Actors Who Are Nowhere Near As Great As They Used To Be: http://whatculture.com/film/10-actors-who-are-nowhere-near-as-great-as-they-used-to-be.php/6 5. Christian Slater Another late 80′s-early 90′s wonderkid, Christian Slater gained respectability co-starring with the legendary Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose. He followed that up with roles in rebellious youth fare movies as Heathers and Pump Up The Volume. He had the smarmy looks and demeanor of Jack Nicholson. He became the ‘Outsider’ of the Hollywood hunks of the day, captivated by his role as Arkansas Dave Rutabagh in Young Guns 2 and Clarence in True Romance. He even shared billing with Brad… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

10 Movie Stars Who Could Really, Really Use A Hit Right Now: http://www.cinemablend.com/new/10-Movie-Stars-Who-Could-Really-Really-Use-Hit-Right-Now-40183-p9.html Christian Slater Christian Slater is creepy. There’s also a bizarre rhythm to the way he speaks, and he’s always excited about playing weirdos. For all those reasons and dozens more, he was never going to be the type to turn his breakout success in Heathers into a George Clooney-type career. That being said, I think we can all agree Slater is a hell of a lot better than the lead role in an animated Chinese family comedy called Back To The Sea or fourth billing on a… Read more »

METEMEDO
METEMEDO
10 years ago

You forgot to mention the 2007 movie “He Was a Quiet Man”, which was very good. And he did an amazing job there. I don’t know how well it did at the box office, though.

Jake
Jake
10 years ago

‘The Wizard’ is obviously far from perfect, but it’s a film I’m willing to sit through if nothing better is on. I guess one reason being that I always thought Jenny Lewis was cute.

Terrence Michael Clay
10 years ago

What happened to Thora Birch?–and other actors that seemed to disappear for no reason…:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15359780&postcount=216

Regarding Telperion’s post, Slater’s sudden drop from the A-list had a lot to do with substance abuse and problems with the law.

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