Roger Ebert Said Ellen DeGeneres' Box Office Bomb Proved She Was A Movie Star

It's been many, many years since anyone has written about, or even thought about, Nick Castle's 1996 comedy "Mr. Wrong." Riffing on the dated idea that every woman is just waiting for "Mr. Right" to come along, "Mr. Wrong" was about finding a man who was a romantic failure by every possible measure. The film followed the romantic misadventures of one Martha Alston (Ellen DeGeneres) who seemingly found everything she wanted in the charming and handsome Whitman Crawford (Bill Pullman). Whitman came along right when Martha was feeling hopeless in love, seeing her younger sister (Hope Davis) getting married, and her parents insisting she follow suit. This man, utterly dazzling, may be her salvation. 

Martha, however, realizes that Whitman is really tightly-wound, and encourages him to "just be himself." This proves to be a mistake, as Whitman instantly transforms into a far more clingy, narcissistic, criminal, obnoxious person. He commits theft and does creepy, pseudo-romantic gestures like dressing as a clown and appearing at Martha's window at night. The horrors  are compacted by Whitman's creepy ex-girlfriend Inga (Joan Cusack) who is also a lunatic. 

No one liked "Mr. Wrong" when it came out. It currently has a mere 7% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 30 reviews. This wasn't a good sign for star Ellen DeGeneres who, at the time, was making her feature film debut as a leading actress. At the time, DeGeneres was better known for her stand-up comedy and her hit sitcom, "Ellen." Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave "Mr. Wrong" a resounding two thumbs down on their famed review show, although Ebert admitted that DeGeneres, despite the awfulness of the movie, still proved herself to be a legit movie star. He found her a likeable, affable screen presence. 

It should be noted that "Mr. Wrong" was released seven full years before Ellen DeGeneres launched her amazingly successful talk show "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2003. Mr. Wrong" also came long before dark stories of DeGeneres' abuse of employees began being printed in earnest. The Daily Beast published a damning article in 2020, and DeGeneres has largely fallen out of favor in most people's minds. 

But in 1996, her career was on an upswing, and DeGeneres was poised to become a big movie star. She was popular enough, anyway, that she was cast as the lead in a mainstream studio comedy, and Ebert felt she availed herself well. It wasn't DeGeneres' fault that "Mr. Wrong" sucked. As he said: 

"The bottom line on this movie, I think, is that Ellen DeGeneres is a movie star. [...] The first 40 minutes, I was with her. I liked her. I thought was she attractive, I thought she was interesting, I thought she was bright. [...] And then the movie goes completely wrong. If you were to lop off all that bizarre stuff at the end and just keep it within the realm of reality [...] it would have been a much more effective film." 

Ebert pointed out that Bill Pullman is also capable of being realistically charming, as he was in the recent film "While You Were Sleeping" (maybe one of the better '90s romcoms) The "bizarre stuff at the end" that Ebert is referring to is a strange rescue in Mexico involving a shooting and the Mexican police. The plot isn't so much wacky as it is contrived and desperate. Siskel and Ebert were right. "Mr. Wrong" is a pretty terrible film. 

It may have been because "Mr. Wrong" was so roundly rejected that Ellen DeGeneres didn't play the lead in a film for many years. In 1998, she played a sardonic cop in the "Pulp Fiction" knockoff "Goodbye, Lover." She had a central role, although not the lead, in Ron Howard's 1999 comedy "EDtv," and was part of the ensemble in the largely forgotten DreamWorks romance "The Love Letter" from the same year. DeGeneres found her movie star moment in 2003, when she played the voice of the forgetful fish Dory in Pixar's ultra-blockbuster "Finding Nemo." That film made over $940 million at the blockbuster, and remains beloved to this day. DeGeneres was only cast because her sitcom was on in the background while director Andrew Stanton was developing the idea.

The year "Nemo" came out, DeGeneres launched her talk show, so she stayed away from the big screen, perhaps content to have taken part in a massive film blockbuster. In 2016, DeGeneres returned to the role for the sequel, "Finding Dory," which was even more successful than "Nemo," earning over a billion dollars worldwide. As of this writing, "Finding Dory" was DeGeneres' last film. 

As mentioned, DeGeneres has become largely persona non grata, thanks to the allegations. In 2022, DeGeneres said that she was bringing her talk show to a conclusion, claiming that she wanted "something new to challenge me." DeGeneres attempted to restart her standup comedy career with a 2024 Netflix special called "For Your Approval." Sadly, the special wasn't well-received (although it got better notices than "Mr. Wrong"). After that, DeGeneres decided to retire altogether. For what it's worth, she did apologize for all her mean behavior.