What happened to Michael Paré? He was poised to be the next James Dean just like Brendan Fraser

Hey i didn't know he worked with David Lynch, He shot some scenes for Inland Empire that were cut.

He essentially has found a career balance of appearing in big movies in small supporting roles (like LINCOLN LAWYER, etc) or bigger, closer-to-starring roles in micro-to-low budget movies (like these Rene Perez movies he's been popping up in lately). I'm sure the prior are better for prestige and pay better but they're a little fewer and farther between than the latter (for which he doesn't have to audition for and shows up on set for a couple of days). In a way it's kind of a similar career to Bruce Campbell, Udo Kier, Richard Tyson, Danny Trejo, Michael Madsen, etc. He had a leading man phase and still gets some larger roles, but they're in low budget movies whose producers probably felt lucky to get him, while the mainstream stuff he is still in throws him into small character roles.

You might want to check out STREETS OF FIRE and THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT. Both are kinda flawed masterpieces from the early 80's. STREETS is kinda the spiritual successor to THE WARRIORS weighed down by all the experimental but ill-fitting 80's rock music and 50's biker culture that it revolves around.