Jack Black Ruined His Role In A Sylvester Stallone Sci-Fi Movie

When "School of Rock" debuted in 2003, it felt as if Jack Black just came out of nowhere to assert himself as one of the best comedic stars of the early 2000s. A man with his outsized charisma seemed like he could march into a Hollywood studio and charm the execs into giving him a leading role, and that's very much how it felt for kids who saw his breakthrough family comedy. In reality, of course, things didn't quite work that way.

Black's breakout role actually came three years prior with 2000's "High Fidelity," after which he showed up in films like "Shallow Hal" and "Orange County" before gifting us all with the unendingly charming classic that is "School of Rock," becoming a superstar in the process. He's remained in the spotlight ever since, most recently by leading the box office smash that is "A Minecraft Movie." But if you cast your mind back to a time before "School of Rock," even before "High Fidelity," Black was very much a struggling young actor.

In the early '90s, the best Jack Black movies, the ones for which we all know and love him, were a long way off. Though he'd been acting since the early '80s, it was mostly in small roles for TV series and commercials. After his fellow UCLA alum Tim Robbins cast him in 1992's "Bob Roberts," however, Black's film career began, but it was slow going at first. In 1993 (one year before Black formed his now legendary band Tenacious D) Black was cast in a Sylvester Stallone sci-fi actioner with an off-beat sensibility. It was hardly a major break, but "Demolition Man" was a big enough deal for Warner Bros., at the behest of action maestro and super producer Joel Silver, to spend millions on elaborate stunts and real explosions that leveled actual buildings, setting fire to a soundstage and pushing the film's budget from $45 million to what some claim was almost $100 million in the process.

Black was cast in a small role that came with the promise of a possible line — a big deal for the young actor at the time. Unfortunately, he managed to screw the whole thing up.

Jack Black might have been struggling to establish himself in 1993, but Sylvester Stallone was also having some struggles of his own. The actor, who had famously launched his own career with 1976's "Rocky," was coming off a bit of a slump after 1988's "Rambo III" couldn't quite match the box office take of its predecessor and 1990's "Rocky V" repeated the same feat while being met with a scathing critical response. After Sly's rival, Arnold Schwarzenegger, tricked him into starring in the ill-fated 1992 comedy "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot", things were looking dire. Luckily, his career was beginning to get back on track following his portrayal of Ranger Gabe Walker in rock climbing thriller "Cliffhanger." The next step in re-establishing himself was "Demolition Man."

With "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon" producer Joel Silver onboard, "Demolition Man" looked like it could be a much-needed hit for Stallone. The actor played John Spartan, an LAPD cop who's slapped with a 70-year-long "cryo-sentence" after a hostage situation gone-wrong. His nemesis, Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) is also cryogenically frozen, only to escape in the year 2032. Unfortunately for the future City of Angels, the police are worryingly inept as they all live in a sexless corporate dystopia (which isn't all that far removed from our sexless corporate dystopia) and are ill-equipped to deal with the evil Phoenix. As such, they thaw out Spartan to help track down the supervillain, thereby providing the basis for a Stallone vs Snipes showdown suffused with a uniquely subversive humor, making it one of Stallone's more memorable non-Rambo actioners.

Where did Jack Black fit into this picture? Well, as what Stallone himself previously referred to as "atmosphere." That is, Black played one of the resistance fighters who live underground in future Los Angeles and follow the guidance of Denis Leary's Edgar Friendly. Officially titled, "Wasteland Scrap," the role was hardly going to be Black's breakthrough, but it could have at least provided him with a few lines (which would mean a pay bump). Unfortunately, the one day Black didn't show up was the one day he was actually needed.

Jack Black is barely visible and doesn't have any lines in "Demolition Man," but things could have been different. During an IMDb interview, the actor recalled his time on the project, remembering that he was "really stoked" to the get the part but quickly realized he was "basically just a glorified extra." According to Black, he would wake up at 6am every day, get to set, wait in a trailer all day, and be sent home at 9pm. "They would say, 'Alright you're done for the day.' And I didn't do anything," he recalled.

This went on for weeks, until one morning after Black had "partied too hard the night before" he woke up late and had to rush to set. On the way he called his agent. "I say, 'I'm late, but it doesn't matter because they never use me anyway.'" But it did matter. He continued: "My agent's like, 'Oh it doesn't matter does it? I just got a call from Joel Silver and he said that this Jack Black kid better be dead. They needed you today Jack. Today was your day on camera.'"

After Black arrived on set, he'd missed the chance to say a line, but the actor didn't seem to broken up about it in retrospect. "Who the f*** cares," he said in his IMDB interview. "I missed a stupid s***** line." Meanwhile, "Demolition Man" was a modest hit for Stallone, though it did lead to a legendarily bad video game.