The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Why do good actors pop up in bad movies? More perplexingly, why do so many good actors end up in the same bad movie? Mary McGuckian's torturously self-important historical drama gives ample time for thought. Did Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel want a free trip to Spain (where the movie was shot)? Were Kathy Bates and Gabriel Byrne desperate to work with De Niro and Keitel? Or perhaps they all felt a burning desire to contribute to a third forgettable adaptation (after those from 1929 and 1944) of Thornton Wilder's 1927 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel