Dave Bautista has continued an unfortunate trend with his new movie that could necessitate a major pivot. The well-known actor got his start as a wrestler, signing with the WWE (which was known as the WWF at the time) in 2000 and performing under the name Batista. He began his onscreen career with an uncredited cameo as an unnamed wrestler in the 2006 comedy Relative Strangers, which starred Danny DeVito and Kathy Bates, eventually playing his first named character as the co-lead of Backlot Murders writer-director David DeFalco’s 2010 movie Wrong Side of Town, opposite fellow wrestler Rob Van Dam.

Perhaps naturally, given his entry point into the industry, there have been many Dave Bautista action movies over the years. This includes 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which provided his breakout acting role as Drax, a character he reprised in two sequels and the later Marvel Cinematic Universe movies Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and Thor: Love and Thunder. While the Guardians movies have been well received, as was his James Bond movie Spectre, in which he played the ᴀssᴀssin Mr. Hinx, his latest installment in the action genre underscores a problem that his career has had in recent years.

In The Lost Lands Is Another Bad Action Movie For Dave Bautista

The George R. R. Martin Adaptation Has Terrible Reviews

Bautista’s latest action movie, the George R. R. Martin fantasy epic adaptation In the Lost Lands, has compounded a recent trend of bad action тιтles for the star. In the Lost Lands reviews have earned the Paul W. S. Anderson movie, which also stars Milla Jovovich, a dismal Rotten Tomatoes score of 18% at the time of writing. Critics are panning almost every element of the movie, from the screenplay to the direction to the action itself. ScreenRant‘s Alex Harrison even delivered potential viewers a dire warning, saying, “don’t waste your time.” Read a longer excerpt from his review below:

The script may be the film’s rotten foundation, but no one element can take all the blame for its emptiness. Director Paul W.S. Anderson’s visual approach and the breakneck pace support In the Lost Lands being structured as an unending stream of supposedly “cool” things, maybe 10% of which actually land that way. This is my first foray into Anderson’s work, so I can’t comment on how this fits with his personal style, but it felt to me like someone trying to copy Zack Snyder’s already middling homework and getting what he does do well totally wrong.

This continues a run of Rotten Tomatoes splats that Bautista’s action movies have earned in recent years. While he appeared in the Certified Fresh franchise installments Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (82%) and Dune: Part Two (92%), after the release of the latter тιтle, which was nominated for five Oscars in 2025 and won two, he starred in a string of action movies that were rejected by critics. In addition to In the Lost Lands, this includes the action-comedy sequel My Spy: The Eternal City (23%) and The Killer’s Game (46%), which reunited him with Guardians star Pom Klementieff.

Even before this current downward trend, for every one of his well-reviewed action movie such as Guardians of the Galaxy (92%), Spectre (63%), Dune (83%), or Blade Runner 2049 (88%), Dave Bautista starred in a Rotten тιтle including The Man with the Iron Fists (51%), Kickboxer: Vengeance (41%), Stuber (43%), or Escape Plan 2: Hades (7%). Additionally, while he has never appeared in a movie that earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, he has starred in the 0% тιтle L.A. Slasher, though that was a horror-comedy rather than an action movie.

Even Dave Bautista Knows He Needs To Get Away From Making Action Movies

He Doesn’t Want To Be Typecast

Although he has taken on many movies in the genre over the course of his career, while speaking with Polygon in early 2025, Bautista admitted that “I don’t want to be an action star.” While continuing to express interest in portraying A Farewell to Arms author Ernest Hemingway in a biographical drama, he rebelled against the idea of being boxed into a specific genre because of his size and his background. Read an excerpt from his interview below:

I also want people to feel like I’m a well-rounded actor and I could step into any world. I don’t want people to count me out of any genre and think that I wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t fit somehow… It’s weird — I know I easily fit into that [action] mold, but I really fought against it for years, and I turned down a lot of roles, because I just didn’t want to be stuck in that rut, and I wanted for people to see me outside of that box.

Nowadays, I’m less resistant, because I think I’ve proved my point, to a certain extent. And I do love action films. But they’re not at the top of my priority list. If I could find an independent film that wasn’t going to bring me a lot of money, but the role was super inspiring and would give me the opportunity to really challenge myself as an actor, I’d probably take that over the payday, over the big action film. I love to watch ’em, but they’re not my favorite films. My favorite films are independent dramas that really are inspiring.

While this quote shows that he has stopped trying to avoid taking on action roles, it also highlights the fact that embracing other genres is a priority for the actor in the near future.

Dave Bautista’s Movie History Suggests Moving Away From Action Movies Is For The Best

He Has Had Success In Several Other Genres

Even though Bautista has not transitioned away from action movies entirely, he has already dabbled in quite a few other genres and generally been rewarded for it, both critically and commercially. His most recent showcase was a dramatic role in the Gia Coppola movie The Last Showgirl, in which he starred opposite Pamela Anderson, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. That movie earned an 83% score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is the best for a Bautista movie since Dune: Part Two.

Other notable non-action successes for Bautista include the M. Night Shyamalan horror drama Knock at the Cabin, which earned a 67% score in addition to grossing $54.8 million worldwide against its $20 million budget. He also held a memorable role in Rian Johnson’s whodunit sequel Glᴀss Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which had the biggest theatrical opening for a Netflix movie in history at the time of its release, in addition to earning a Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 92%.

Dave Bautista Still Has Some Action Movies Planned After In The Lost Lands

Some See Bautista Dipping His Toe Into Other Genres

Although In the Lost Lands has continued this negative trend, Dave Bautista still has many genre projects coming soon. This includes the 2025 action movie Afterburn, in which he stars as a post-apocalyptic treasure hunter opposite Samuel L. Jackson and Olga Kurylenko, the Hawaii-set buddy comedy The Wrecking Crew, which stars him and Jason Momoa as half-brothers solving their father’s murder, and the dystopian sci-fi movie Dreadnought, where he plays a father defending his dying daughter from alien invaders.

His upcoming action roster also includes an unтιтled Anne Hathaway action-comedy about an FBI wedding sting, and the movie Trap House, in which he stars as a DEA agent who works with his partner to stop their teenage children from committing a dangerous crime.

However, some upcoming Dave Bautista movies offer him new genres to play with, even if they may feature action elements. This includes the upcoming Aang: The Last Airbender, an animated fantasy movie that is part of the Avatar franchise, the classic reimagining Grendel, in which he plays Beowulf, and the genre-bending Cate Blanchett movie Alpha Gang, about a group of alien invaders disguised as bikers. These тιтles could prove to be important transition points as he showcases his acting range within other genres and seeks out roles further from the action sphere.

Source(s): Polygon