Summary
- American Primeval could revive Taylor Kitsch's career after the setback caused by the box office bomb John Carter.
- Taylor Kitsch's role in American Primeval will showcase his range as an actor and allow him to shed his previous all-American boy image.
- The success of The Terminal List and American Primeval may lead to Kitsch focusing more on television roles in the future, where he has excelled in the past.
While Taylor Kitsch’s leading man prospects were held up by a huge box office bomb, Netflix’s upcoming Western show American Primeval could revive his career. Kitsch has proven himself as a versatile actor over the last few decades with roles in everything from Friday Night Lights to 2012’s Savages to 2017’s underrated drama Only the Brave. However, the actor’s chances to impress as a leading man were irretrievably shot by a famous flop that wasn’t really his fault. After Friday Night Lights proved Kitsch could carry a drama series, 2012's financial failure John Carter killed his movie career.
John Carter was one of the biggest box office bombs of all time, resulting in a massive write-down for Disney and a huge stall in Kitsch’s career. Since the same year’s Battleship failed to impress critics, Kitsch's status as an A-list leading man quickly vanished. However, while John Carter ruined the star’s rise, he has been gradually coming back ever since. He was singled out for praise in 2015’s otherwise-inconsistent True Detective season 2 and 2022 saw him impress as Ben Edwards in Amazon's The Terminal List. Now, the upcoming Netflix Western could continue his stealthy career comeback in prestige TV.
American Primeval Is The Latest Step In Taylor Kitsch's Long Comeback
This Netflix Western Joins The Terminal List: Dark Wolf In Kitsch’s Upcoming Slate
Kitsch’s upcoming role in Netflix’s Western series American Primeval continues the star’s long road to recovering his leading man bonafides. Written by Mark L. Smith, who co-wrote The Revenant with Alejandro González Iñárritu, American Primeval promises to be a brutal Western that will rival Yellowstone in reviving the genre for the small screen. American Primeval will also give viewers the Taylor Kitsch leading role they’ve wanted for years, with Jai Courtney and Betty Gilpin co-starring alongside him. This hard-edged Western could be the perfect chance for Kitsch to shed the last vestiges of his original all-American boy image.
American Primeval is directed and executive produced by Peter Berg, the man behind Friday Night Lights, Kitsch's breakout series.
Kitsch already grew out of his matinée idol hero era when he played a troubled, corrupt cop in True Detective season 2, and he doubled down on this approach with his role as an amoral villain in The Terminal List. However, American Primeval can reinvent Taylor Kitsch as an antihero, something that his years out of the spotlight will facilitate. Kitsch can now bring back the same elements of moral ambiguity and conflict that made his role in Friday Night Lights so impressive, but he can transplant this complexity to the dark violent Western milieu of Netflix’s American Primeval.
How John Carter Hurt Taylor Kitsch's Career (Despite Not Being His Fault)
Kitsch’s Performance Couldn’t Salvage The Underrated Sci-Fi Adventure’s Box Office
One of the biggest ironies of John Carter’s historically bad box office is that the movie was nowhere near as terrible as its financial failure suggests. Where the likes of Mars Needs Moms and The Adventures of Pluto Nash deserved to be astronomical failures, John Carter was a visually stunning, often thrilling adventure story whose somber tone wasn’t as big an issue as many critics claimed. Admittedly, John Carter’s self-serious style clashed badly with the self-aware box-office success story of 2012, The Avengers. However, the movie fit right in with the same year’s hits The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall.
Notable Box Office Bombs | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Movie | Release Year | Worldwide Box Office Gross | Budget |
John Carter | 2012 | $284,139,100 | $250,000,000 |
Mars Needs Moms | 2011 | $39,233,678 | $150,000,000 |
The Adventures of Pluto Nash | 2002 | $7,103,973 | $100,000,000 |
Moreover, Kitsch’s performance in John Carter was perfectly solid. While the movie took itself too seriously, Kitsch perfectly embodied John Carter's titular character. Kitsch’s later roles in The Terminal List season 1 and True Detective proved he had range, but a re-watch of John Carter shows that he never deserved the blame for the movie’s failure. American Primeval can now ameliorate the damage that John Carter caused the star’s career by offering him another chance to impress viewers in a role that will be darker than many of his earlier parts.
American Primeval Can Cement A Taylor Kitsch Career Change
The Star May Stick To TV If His Upcoming Shows Prove Successful
The success of The Terminal List and the arrival of American Primeval both point to Kitsch sticking mainly to television roles going forward, which could be a wise move given the actor’s considerable pedigree. Although True Detective season 2 was far from acclaimed, Kitsch and Rachel McAdams emerged from the flawed series with more critical credibility than they had before, and Kitsch stole the show as The Terminal List’s villain in season 1. Since The Terminal List prequel series Dark Wolf will give him another starring role on the small screen, it makes sense for the actor to stick to this medium.
Friday Night Lights was where Kitsch’s career started because the show's long-form storytelling of television allowed the actor to gradually win over viewers with a naturalistic performance that wasn’t too showy or over-the-top. This quiet charm was overwhelmed in expensive blockbusters like John Carter and Battleship, which left Kitsch no room to flex his dramatic range thanks to their deluge of CGI aliens. Now, after True Detective and The Terminal List showed that the actor was as well-suited to television as ever, Netflix’s American Primeval can prove that Kitsch really shines on the small screen.
American Primeval
Not Yet Rated
Drama
Western
American Primeval is a Netflix limited series that follows the lives of several men and women in the middle of the expansion of the American West. Social dynamics clash as men and women battle for a piece of the new world against rivals and each other.
- Cast
- Taylor Kitsch , Jai Courtney , Dane DeHaan , Betty Gilpin , Nick Hargrove , Kyle Bradley Davis , Derek Hinkey , Saura Lightfoot Leon , Preston Mota , Shawnee Pourier , Joe Tippett
- Seasons
- 1
- Creator(s)
- Peter Berg , Eric Newman , Mark L. Smith
- Directors
- Peter Berg
