There's no denying that Jake Gyllenhaal is a huge Hollywood A-lister now, but back in 2010, his promising career could have come to a screeching halt if it weren't for Source Code's release a year later. When Gyllenhaal got into TV and film acting in 1991, it took a little bit of time for the young man's career to fully take shape. However, by 1999, he starred as Homer Hickam in October Sky and launched his career as a leading man.
Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the most popular actors of his generation and has been since his early 20s thanks to movies like Donnie Darko. Though Gyllenhaal has tackled multiple genres to great success, it seems like thriller films are where he shines the brightest. This is especially true of 2014’s Nightcrawler, in which Gyllenhaal delivers his best performance. It’s incredibly intense and suspenseful and Gyllenhaal has proven he’s great at playing a psychopath.
Source Code Gave Jake Gyllenhaal A Huge Rebound After Prince Of Persia's Failure
The Two Movies Had Very Different Performances At The Box Office
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time received widely mixed reviews, and despite an astonishing $200 million budget, the movie only managed to pull in $336 million at the box office (via The Numbers). While that may not sound terrible, the production budget is just one massive expenditure that goes into making a movie, and marketing and distribution costs can rack up hefty fees too. Add to this the fact that only a percentage of the box office actually goes back to the studio, and it's plain to see whyPrince of Persia was a catastrophic failure for Disney.
However, while this could have been a major blot on Gyllenhaal's career, the actor jumped straight back into other work, and had significantly more success with a much smaller production, Source Code. While the film's total box office was less than half of Prince of Persia's, the $140 million take home dwarfed the $32 million budget (via The Numbers), making it a rousing success. Thus proving that it was much less Gyllenhaal that failed to bring in audiences and deliver a quality performance, but a lack in Prince of Persia overall.
The Other Movie That Saved Jake Gyllenhaal After Prince Of Persia
Gyllenhaal Hedged His Bets With Multiple Other Releases
The thing is, right up until the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 2020, video game movies were deemed to be cursed. Almost no video game adaptation was generally seen as good, and the entire genre was considered too challenging to really consider. So, it was important for Gyllenhaal to hedge his bets when it came to starring in a hopeful new video game franchise, despite the streak of bad luck. Fortunately, Gyllenhaal certainly did ensure that there would be other movies where he starred to lift him up if Prince of Persia fell short.
Prince of Persia
was a catastrophic failure for Disney.
Movies like Love & Other Drugs were released in the same year, and again proved that Gyllenhaal's talent was the standard, not the exception. Then, three years later, in 2013, he starred opposite Hugh Jackman in the thrilling mystery film, Prisoners. Neither of these quite matched the success of Source Code, but it proved Gyllenhaal's worth and allowed him to continue building to bigger and more exciting roles.
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