The B-Movie Steve McQueen Wished He'd Never Made
Before he was the 'King of Cool,' Steve McQueen took a role he thought would vanish without a trace. Instead, it became a cult classic that haunted him for the rest of his life, representing a massive financial blunder and a creative decision he could never take back.
Every actor has a few skeletons in their closet, roles taken out of necessity before fame offered them the luxury of choice. Even an icon like Steve McQueen, who eventually commanded his own career path, had one particular project he deeply regretted. Long before he became one of the biggest names of the 1960s and 70s, he was just another actor trying to make it.
A Star on the Rise
McQueen wasn't an overnight success. He possessed the raw talent and charisma for a competitive industry, but he had to patiently wait for his big break. His leading part in the television series _Wanted Dead or Alive_ from 1958 to 1961 certainly raised his profile. However, making the leap from the small screen to the silver screen was a much tougher climb back then.
Luckily, the release of _The Magnificent Seven_ before the show's finale provided the first real proof that McQueen belonged in theaters. While it was his seventh feature film, it marked a turning point. From there, his career skyrocketed through the decade. He solidified his A-list credentials with _The Great Escape_ earned an Oscar nomination for _The Sand Pebbles_ and cemented his status as Hollywood's ultimate tough guy with _The Thomas Crown Affair_ and _Bullitt_.
An Amorphous Nightmare
By the time he was going toe-to-toe with Paul Newman in _The Towering Inferno_, he was the highest-paid actor in the business. Yet, a specter from his early days lingered. More specifically, a gelatinous, amorphous specter. In his first-ever top-billed role, McQueen starred in the 1958 sci-fi picture _The Blob_.
The movie, a standard tale of an alien creature terrorizing a small American town, became a surprise commercial success and an influential genre piece. But the man at its center despised it. Upon reading the script, he had a terrible feeling. “It was shit!” he later told Michael Munn. His wife at the time, Neile Adams, encouraged him to take the part. “But Neile said, ‘Why not do it?’ I said, ‘It’ll kill my career’. I said, ‘No, it won’t. No one’ll see it. No one’ll know you were in it’. I figured she was right.”
A Regretful Payday
Her prediction couldn't have been more wrong. “Man, everyone saw it,” he would later lament. To make matters worse, he made a significant financial misstep. McQueen was offered a deal for 10% of the profits but turned it down, believing the project was destined to fail. With a budget of just $110,000, the picture raked in over $4 million at the box office, meaning he missed out on a substantial payday.
Instead, he opted for a guaranteed upfront payment of $3,000. His feelings about the project never softened over time. In one of his final interviews before his passing in 1980, a reporter asked him about _The Blob_. His curt response said it all: “I don’t want to talk about that movie.”