Among movie lovers, there’s a simple phrase that can instantly inspire dread: “child star.” Sure, some child stars can deliver great performances, but most are bad actors cast to be precocious little stinkers. And if that comedy falls flat, you’re left with a movie that…well…stinks!
Perhaps nobody understands that better than Michael Oliver. He was the star of Problem Child and Problem Child 2, and film critics absolutely savaged those movies. Just like that, what could have been the launchpad for a successful career (like what Home Alone was for Macaulay Culkin) instead destroyed his career prospects, eventually causing him to leave Hollywood altogether.
Just what is this former problem child up to, and what misadventures has he gotten into after leaving filmmaking far behind? Keep reading to find out!
Problem Child featured some major Hollywood stars
Despite playing the title character, Michael Oliver is probably the least well-known actor in Problem Child. After all, he was a relatively unknown child star, and this was intended as his breakout role. Considering that this movie and its sequel effectively killed Oliver’s Hollywood dreams, though, it’s fair to say that the breakout never really happened.
Despite that, Problem Child included some other major actors, ones who would only become even bigger names after the movie’s release. John Ritter and his future wife Amy Yasbeck played the parents of the titular problem child and comedian Gilbert Gottfried appeared in the film well before he was a household name. Even future Seinfeld star Michael Richards appears, making this a star-studded film…one that just so happens to be critically reviled.
The child star at the heart of an infamous movie
If you’re an 80s or 90s child, you might have some very fond memories of Problem Child. And that may be enough to make you question why we keep referring to it as a very terrible movie. And the answer is really quite simple: this is one of the most critically-reviled movies ever made.
On the film review site Rotten Tomatoes, Problem Child has a zero percent. No, that’s not a typo…out of all the professional critics who reviewed this film, not one of them would recommend that anyone watch it. On the site, the critical consensus reads as follows: “Mean-spirited and hopelessly short on comic invention, Problem Child is a particularly unpleasant comedy, one that’s loaded with manic scenery chewing and juvenile pranks.”
Despite being so infamously bad, the first Problem Child made enough money at the box office to warrant a sequel. Unfortunately, that movie and its star, young Michael Oliver, were soon part of a nasty behind-the-scenes lawsuit.
A surprise sequel and a nasty lawsuit
Michael Oliver’s contract for Problem Child stipulated that, should the studio create a sequel, the young boy was required to star in it. Despite critics hating the first film, it made enough money to warrant a sequel, and Oliver brought his infamous character back to the big screen. And he was set to have a big payday for the sequel: his salary was originally bumped to $80,000 (twice what he made for Problem Child) before being negotiated to $250,000, with a promise of another $250,00 if the movie was a hit.
If that sounds too good to be true, that’s because it was: Universal later sued Oliver’s mother, Dianne Ponce, alleging that she had threatened to keep her son off the film set unless her salary demands were met. Considering that millions had already been sunk into this sequel, the studio claimed they had been forced to agree to Ponce’s terms under duress. The court ultimately agreed with Universal, and Michael Oliver’s family was forced to pay back a whopping $170,000. While they eventually recovered, this triggered a series of financial setbacks that eventually forced the young star’s family out of their home, and they were forced to stay with friends until they recovered.
The franchise that killed a child star’s career
While Problem Child 2 wasn’t Michael Oliver’s last role, it was most certainly his final significant screen appearance. He appeared in one episode of the forgotten sitcom Platypus Man in 1995, and that same year, he starred in the direct-to-video film Dillinger and Capone. Other than that, his post-Problem Child career consisted of uncredited roles in two major films: Forrest Gump and Eraser. He soon left Hollywood altogether, explaining on Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast that he was so typecast as Junior from Problem Child that it was hard for him to nab other roles.
Since he stopped acting, his personal life has been something of a mixed bag. On the bright side, there are insanely strong rumors that he was once a roadie for rock bands like the Samples. In addition to the band’s social media photos featuring a roadie that looks like Oliver, the Sample’s now-defunct webpage had a description of a roadie named PC (a handle Oliver sometimes goes by) that mentioned he “was twice a problem as a child.”
In sadder news, Michael Oliver got married but eventually divorced his wife. These days, he seems happy to be on his own and (minus the occasional appearances on the Hollywood show where he meets his fans), he’s happy to be away from Hollywood. As he told Gottfried, “I started to realize, ‘Hey, I think I want a normal life. So now, I work my ass off, I have a nine-to-five, quiet existence — I’m happy with it.”