Oscar actors on the skids

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Just because you win an Oscar doesn't mean that every subsequent film you make will be Academy Award-caliber stuff. In fact, Oscar winners inevitably make incongruous missteps in their career after they pick up an Academy Award.

Just look at Kevin Costner. After being on top of the world when he won the best director Oscar for the 1990 best film, "Dances With Wolves," he made the gargantuan turkey "Waterworld" and then directed a three-hour celluloid nightmare called "The Postman," which was DOA with critics and audiences alike. No sooner did Julia Roberts earn an Oscar for "Erin Brockovich" than critics soured on her talents in the ill-fated comedy "America's Sweethearts." And what was Oscar-winner Tommy Lee Jones thinking when he signed up for the yawn-inducing comedy "Man of the House," a film so tepid that it wasn't even screened for critics?

Here's a look at some Oscar winners and follow-up films they'd love to forget.