Billy Bob Thornton Called One Of His Biggest Movies A 'Two-Hour Piece Of Trash'

In 1998, Bruce Willis helped make "Armageddon" the biggest movie of the year. Using his unique brand of everyman machismo, the megastar led a group of oil drillers into outer space to blow up an asteroid in what has to be the most Michael Bay movie the director ever made. Despite being a box office success, however, the film has since endured unending criticism from all angles, including its actors. At one point, Billy Bob Thornton, who played NASA Executive Director Dan Truman, even referred to "Armageddon" as "a two-hour piece of trash I wish I hadn't done."

Lots of people recoiled at "Armageddon." Roger Ebert absolutely hated the divisive sci-fi flick, so much so that he dubbed it "an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained." Even Bruce Willis had a big issue with "Armageddon," specifically criticizing Bay for removing a lot of the character development from the final cut (yes, the exploding asteroid movie originally had more character-building scenes). Willis has also taken issue with what is one of the film's most-attacked aspects, the editing, and even complained that Thornton was under-used.

For Thornton, who's now starring in the hugely successful Paramount+ series "Landman," his underutilization was probably a good thing. Like Ben Affleck in his infamous "Armageddon" commentary track, Thornton hasn't been shy about pointing out the film's flaws, and in 2012, he seemed genuinely ashamed to have been a part of the project.

Billy Bob Thornton has made some questionable films in his time. In 2015, he took on a giant grizzly bear in B-movie "Into the Grizzly Maze," and in 1994, Thornton faced the only thing scarier: Steven Segal. That early action role was minimal to say the least, as was his role in "Armageddon," though that's probably for the best given his later comments about Michael Bay's blockbuster.

In a 2012 interview with journalist Tony Clayton-Lea, Thornton dubbed "Armageddon" a "two-hour piece of trash I wish I hadn't done" before claiming that he "only want[ed] to do things that have integrity." Considering he was only a few years away from making "Into the Grizzly Maze" at the time, that comment hasn't aged well. Neither has his caustic remark about "Armageddon," which at this point is surely remembered as one of the most enjoyably ridiculous blockbusters of the '90s.

Thornton went on to say, "I think we've got enough commercial rubbish in the world already and I don't want to add anything to that. The only proof I have in wanting to have integrity is if I showed people the list of movies I have turned down." According to the actor, he'd said no to roughly "20 movies in the past two months" at the time, purely because of his commitment to not polluting the media-sphere with more commercialism. "I'm not a wealthy movie star; I don't make that much money," he continued. "I'm still an actor for these movie people and I know I'm not the first person they call. For a famous actor, I make a modest living, which is more than a plumber I admit, but it's relative."

There's no denying that "Armageddon" is ridiculous. The film revolves around a plan to send Bruce Willis' Harry S. Stamper and his team of oil drillers into space with minimal astronaut training in order to blow up an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. It should be said, however, that it turns out the plot of "Armageddon" is actually possible, according to science. The film's editing was admittedly disorienting and there's not a shred of what Billy Bob Thornton might have called "integrity" to the movie. But it also doesn't really pretend to have any. It's a schlocky piece of Hollywood spectacle that happens to have millions of dollars behind it. Taken that way, it's a heck of a lot of fun.

Thankfully, it seems Thornton has softened on the film since his 2012 interview. Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2025, the actor said, "I got to say, that movie stood the test of time, and they still play it all the time." Still, he maintains that he shouldn't really have been involved. Recalling the first script read-through for the film, he said, "I was sitting between Steve Buscemi and Owen Wilson and Will Patton. Buscemi looked over at me and he goes, 'Hey, bud, what the hell are we doing here?' I said, 'Yeah, I know.'"

At the time he made "Armageddon," Thornton had only really just broken through with "Sling Blade," the 1996 Oscar-winning drama he credits with changing his life. Blockbusters like "Armageddon" were as foreign to him as space travel was to Willis' oil man, and it must have been tough to have made the jump to such films only for the final product to have been met with such a critical backlash.