Don Cheadle Says People Came Up To Him In Person And Bashed Ocean's 12

The movie Ocean's 12 was not as beloved as Ocean's 11, and people were not afraid to share their opinions when coming across one of its stars, Don Cheadle, on the street. Reflecting on the Ocean's series as part of a GQ interview, Cheadle recalled how, despite the hate, it was the most fun to film of the three movies.

"The second movie is the one that people will just unabashedly walk up to you and go, 'Yeah, I hated that one. That one sucked.' I'm like, 'Cool, you just said that to my face like I'm not a person. But alright, thank you.' That was actually, for us, the most fun of all of them," Cheadle said (via Variety).

Ocean's 12 takes place in Europe and was shot on location. Cheadle said the production crew rented out the entire sixth floor of the exclusive Russie Hotel in Rome, so the cast and their families could avoid the paparazzi.

Outside of the scenes filmed in Rome, Cheadle and his co-stars--including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts--basically got to go on a tour of Europe together. "We toured Europe in this big group and it was a lot of fun. Everybody had a lot of fun together," he said.

2001's Ocean's 11--which focused on a casino heist in Las Vegas--was a breakout hit, bringing in more than $450 million worldwide. Its 2004 sequel Ocean's 12 took the action to Europe and was less of a commercial success, bringing in $363 million globally. The third movie, 2007's Ocean's 13, returned to Las Vegas and added Al Pacino to the cast; it was the least successful of the bunch, earning $311 million worldwide.

Warner Bros. revived the series with 2018's Ocean's 8 featuring an ensemble cast that included Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Anne Hathaway, Sarah Paulson, Rhianna, Helena Bonham Carter, and Awkwafina. Bullock played Debbie Ocean, the sister of Clooney's Danny Ocean. This movie was even less commercially successful than the three previous ones, earning $298 million worldwide.

Cheadle told Entertainment Weekly in 2021 that discussions were underway for another Ocean's movie years ago with the main cast of the original films, but those plans fell apart after the passing of Bernie Mac in 2008. "We were talking about it, and then Bernie passed, and very quickly we were like, 'No, we don't want to do it,'" he said at the time.

The first Ocean's movie was actually 1960's Ocean's 11 starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr.