It’s always been the case that the biggest stars in Hollywood don’t necessarily always star in the best movies, but John Wayne couldn’t have cared less what the critics thought either way, such was the level of confidence he had in his own popularity.
Every A-lister needs at least some degree of ego to survive and thrive in the cutthroat world of cinema, but Wayne’s self-belief was hardly misplaced. After all, he reigned as one of the most bankable box office draws in the business for decades, with his name alone often more than enough to convince audiences that shelling out for the cost of a ticket was a worthwhile expense.
Of course, ‘The Duke’ had a habit of backing up his conviction by letting his filmography do the talking, which was filled to the brim with countless classics. Not that he was completely bulletproof, though, with The Conqueror being branded one of the worst movies ever made long before it may have become the most deadly.
The longer his career went on, the less interested Wayne became in the machinations unfolding in the corridors of power, to the point he became vocally disdainful of what c inema was becoming. Once his stardom was secured, he chose his roles based on an audience of two: himself and the people.
That meant he was unwilling to commit to anything that flew in the face of his established image, nor did he concern himself with bad reviews when box office dollars were all that mattered. If people showed up to see ‘The Duke’ in action, then he considered it a job well done, regardless of whether there was adulation or vitriol coming from the critics.
In fact, he once remarked that giving one of his films a drubbing, panning, or evisceration was about as pointless as it gets because the people penning the scathing criticisms of his output were the last folks on his mind whenever he pitched up to set to shoot. “When people say a John Wayne picture got bad reviews, I always wonder if they know it’s a redundant sentence, but hell, I don’t care,” he said per Biography. “People like my pictures and that’s all that counts.”
With well over 100 credits to his name, there was no chance every single one of them was going to be a winner. Several of them rank among the most iconic and influential movies ever made, many of them were entirely forgettable, and a select few were egregiously awful. At the end of the day, as long as he emerged on the other side with his drawing power still intact and a tidy profit had been turned, Wayne counted it as a successful endeavour.