10 Movie Stars Who Deserve A Career Resurrection

1. Winona Ryder

Where Did It All Go Wrong? Well, when she went shoplifting in Beverly Hills in 2001. No big movies since.

Ideal Career-Resurrection Project The Heathers (1988) sequel. Michael Lehmann's back, it's 20 years later and desperate housewife Veronica has let a Desperate Housewives-style, yummy-mummy clique grind her down.

Then she starts seeing the ghost of Christian Slater's JD...

2. Matthew McConaughey

Where Did It All Go Wrong? The old new Robert Redford of the '90s, now paddling about morosely in bad rom-coms and shoddy action movies.

Ideal Career-Resurrection Project: David Fincher helms, MM plays a plausible, dashing, fashion victim-slaying serial killer. Sarah Jessica Parker sliced and diced in the first reel...

3. Brendan Fraser

Where Did It All Go Wrong? It's been downhill since The Mummy Returns (2001) basically.

Ideal Career-Resurrection Project He's an okayish action star but a pretty good comic actor. Time for a Pineapple Express (2008) sequel with Fraser's stature propping up Rogen and Franco.[page-break]

4. Jennifer Garner

Where Did It All Go Wrong? Alias should have been the perfect springboard to an all-action career, but then Elektra (2005) bellyflopped and she's been splashing around aimlessly ever since.

Ideal Career-Resurrection Project Elektra again, but this time Zack Snyder gets to have a go. Cue blood-splattered ninjas, resurrected corpses and no soppy 'Save The Small Kid!' sub-plot...

5. Ryan Gosling

Where Did It All Go Wrong? Fracture (2007), basically. Even an Oscar nom for the wondrous Half Nelson (2006) couldn't help Gosling leapfrog the career stumbling-block that is... signing on for a thriller opposite Anthony Hopkins.

Ideal Career-Resurrection Project Goofy, edgy, loveable and loathable? Funny, too. Why has Joe Carnahan not hired this man to play Howling Mad Murdoch in his A-Team adap?

6. Christina Ricci

Where Did It All Go Wrong? Everything she's headlined since The Opposite Of Sex (1998) has been rubbish.

Ideal Career-Resurrection Project It's about time Quentin Tarantino did an out-and-out horror movie and who better to play the 300-year-old old on-the-wagon vampire working nights in an LA video store than Ms Ricci?[page-break]

7. Jamie Foxx

Where Did It All Go Wrong? That Oscar for Ray (2004) seems a long time ago now... Tosh like Stealth (2005), Miami Vice (2006) and The Kingdom (2007) have seen Foxx's thespy stature go south...

Ideal Career-Resurrection Project Part-time scripter of The Wire George Pelecanos' blaxploitation thriller novel 'King Suckerman' is crying out to be filmed.

Stick Spike Lee behind the camera and Foxx in front of it as record-shop owner and basketball fan Marcus Clay, out for vengeance on the streets of Seventies Washington...

8. Orlando Bloom

Where Did It All Go Wrong? Kingdom Of Heaven (2005) was going to be his Gladiator (2000) right? Wrong, wrong, wrong...

Ideal Career-Resurrection Project Half Walter Mitty, half Billy Liar, OB is the twentysomething office-worker fantasist convinced he's really a movie star.

Ray Winstone, of course, is the tough-nut dad trying to knock sense into his dreamer son, but it all ends tragi-comically - King Of Comedy (1982) Brit-style. Terry Gilliam directs.[page-break]

9. Paul Bettany

Where Did It All Go Wrong? It's been supporting roles and rent-a-villain slots since Wimbledon (2004) double-faulted.

Ideal Career-Resurrection Project Guy Ritchie follows up Sherlock Holmes with a crack at Victorian Gentleman thief Raffles.

Bettany's the suave anti-hero crook, Robert Downey Jr cameos as Holmes, everyone laughs all the way to the bank...

Also - stick five years on him and it isn't a stretch to see a Bettany Bond.

10. Aaron Eckhart

Where Did It All Go Wrong? After The Dark Knight (2008), the man should be headlining blockbusters but The Core (2003) dug deep into his leading-man credibility...

Ideal Career Resurrection Project Aaron Eckhart is... Captain America!

It's the early '40s and Cap's battling the Red Skull's Nazis in the sewers of New York. Guillermo Del Toro directs.

Come on, Marvel! There's still time to ditch Joe Carnahan and do this right...