A few short years ago, Brittany Murphy was omniscient. Like God, or the Orbit gum lady. She used to do crap-fests and Oscar-caliber strokes of indie genius with equal aplomb. But, apparently, she's a little hard on her luck these days. Her character in the upcoming Mickey Rourke flick The Expendables (who you'll recall she worked with in this facsimile of Requiem For a Dream) has proved to be, well, expendable. During rip-roaring rounds of rewrites, the malevolent they went ahead and deleted her entirely from the script. Haters. We can all say such things as, "Oh this happens all the time in production!" and "Brittany's a dream to work with, so it's not personal!" but the question will remain. How does one of America's it-girls end up with such Lohanian failures and a stray straight-to-DVD Ramen-mongering role?

I suppose, when in doubt, blame Poor Man's Hillary Duff for snatching up all the good girl roles. Or Murphy's part-time gig lending her voice to King of the Hill -- for curbing all potential glamor. Sadly, even her future prospects look a bit thin. So failing a high-profile project soon, perhaps she'll be ready for a Rourkian comeback. In 2020.