Guy Ritchie's 2008 crime film RocknRolla has since revealed a rare cast lineup: many of the lead actors went on to play villains in Marvel or DC films, and one had already played Gotham mob boss Carmine Falcone before joining this film.
RocknRolla came during a transitional period in Guy Ritchie's career, filmed between two low points and the Sherlock Holmes series that revived his career. Distributed by Warner Bros., the film topped the UK box office in its opening weekend and grossed about $25.7 million worldwide against an $18 million budget. While not a failure, the return was far below the $83 million achieved by Snatch, released eight years earlier.
The film received mixed reviews at the time, with many critics viewing it as a sign of Ritchie's recovery rather than a true success. The end credits teased a sequel, The Real RocknRolla, but it never materialized. Compared to box office figures and sequel plans, the subsequent careers of the cast make this list particularly special.
Gerard Butler and Tom Wilkinson played a thief and an old-school gangster boss, respectively, while Thandie Newton played an accountant maneuvering between them and secretly plotting a scam. Mark Strong played Archie, the right-hand man to Wilkinson's character, and served as the film's narrator; Tom Hardy played the handsome Bob, and Toby Kebbell played Johnny Quid, the rock star who faked his death.
Other cast members included Karel Roden as a Russian oligarch, Jeremy Piven and Ludacris as American music industry executives, and Idris Elba as the quiet fixer Mumbles. Jason Statham was also considered for a role but could not participate due to scheduling conflicts.
At the time of the film's release, only one actor in the cast had a notable comic book adaptation film credit worth mentioning; the rest came later. Elba played Heimdall in Thor three years later, but Thor was not his first comic book movie, nor was he the representative villain in this cast.
Tom Hardy played a gang member with a crush on Butler's character in RocknRolla. Four years later, he portrayed the main villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. The film grossed over $1 billion worldwide, with Bane defeating Batman and breaking his back, marking Hardy's most definitive comic book movie villain role.
Hardy later played Eddie Brock in Venom. However, that film was produced by Sony and is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Venom's role in the film is that of an anti-hero rather than a traditional pure villain, making it different in nature from Bane.
Toby Kebbell played the main villain Victor Von Doom in the 2015 Fantastic Four reboot. The film had a production budget of about $120 million and grossed $168 million worldwide. It received a C- CinemaScore and multiple Golden Raspberry Award nominations, including Worst Picture. Kebbell has since spoken candidly about the circumstances behind the final portrayal of Doctor Doom.
From a rock star who faked his death in RocknRolla to playing one of Marvel's most iconic villains seven years later, Kebbell is the only actor in this cast to have clearly taken on a major villain role in a Marvel film.
Mark Strong's comic book film history is more complex. He played Sinestro in the 2011 film Green Lantern, but Sinestro was not the villain; he was Hal Jordan's mentor. The film's main villain was Parallax. Sinestro's turn to darkness only appeared in a post-credits scene, setting up a sequel that was never made.
Eight years later, Strong played Dr. Sivana in Shazam!, which was his first clear role as a main villain. He had also played mob boss Frank D'Amico in Kick-Ass, released a year before Green Lantern. Although the Kick-Ass comics were published by Marvel, they are not part of Marvel's superhero works.
Unlike several actors who played comic book movie villains later on, Tom Wilkinson's timeline is reversed. He played Lenny Cole, the old-school London crime boss who controlled Everythinggj in RocknRolla, but three years earlier, he had already portrayed Gotham mob boss Carmine Falcone in Batman Begins.
Falcone arranged the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents in the film and was involved in smuggling Scarecrow's fear toxin into Gotham. In other words, before becoming the London gangster boss in RocknRolla, Wilkinson had already ruled Gotham's underworld on screen.