False Assessment

As prominent (and lucky) as DeVito has been, there’s definitely a documented case where his judgment of a film couldn’t have been more wrong. He famously headlined the comedy Ruthless People with Bette Midler, and after they saw the final cut at the premiere, both of them were horrified by the film. They shared a phone call where both of them fell into a nervous rage at how they’d killed their careers by being in the movie.

The film would end up being the 9th highest-grossing film of 1986 in the United States, ahead of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Suffice to say, neither’s career was ruined by any measure.