Matthew Lillard Thought ‘Scooby-Doo 2’ Would Make Him ‘No. 1 on the Call Sheet For the Next 10 Years.’ Then It Flopped and His Career Became ‘Irrelevant’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Matthew Lillard thought his career would explode when the success of 2002’s live-action “Scooby-Doo” (the film earned $275 million worldwide) launched a franchise.

The actor signed up to reprise the role of Shaggy in 2004’s “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed” and earned the biggest payday of his career.

The only way forward for his career was up. Or so he thought. “I thought I’d be No. 1 on the call sheet for the next 10 years of movies,” Lillard recently admitted to Business Insider. “And the reality was the exact opposite happened.” “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed” was a critical dud and flopped at the box office, failing to cross the $200 million mark worldwide that the original easily cleared.

The failure of the “Scooby-Doo” sequel resulted in Lillard’s career coming to a screeching halt and forced him to reprioritize his goals as an actor. “I was caught up in the success of what I was doing, I was caught up in the parts I was getting, I was caught up in this drive to be quote-unquote famous,” Lillard admitted, noting that he finally had to stop caring about chasing fame. “I was going to do ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ And I was like, if I do ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ I’ll never win an Academy Award,” Lillard said. “If I do ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ I’ll be famous and not a great actor, and I really just wanted to be a great actor.