A year or so ago I got to talk to comic book cover artist Tim Bradstreet, who is most well known for his cover work on the Punisher and Punisher Max series written by Garth Ennis, which was the big impetus for the Thomas Jane Punisher movie being made in the first place back in 2004. From what I got from talking to him, he basically said that Jane really shot himself in the foot by being a bit of a diva on where he thought the series should go, which led to him leaving the sequel which then became Punisher: War Zone. Bradstreet also said Ennis and he would talk at length about how watered down the 2004 Punisher film was, especially in comparison to the comic at the time, which while not as graphic as the Punisher Max series was, it wasn't the "Punisher pranks criminals with popsicles and parking tickets" that the Jane movie ended up being, despite being rated R. Bradstreet would also say how Jane acted on set and in the pre-production of the sequel are really what started his downturn towards the stuff he has been doing for over a decade now.
As for Cusack, there was an interesting article that came out this year where he blamed his downturn on the fact that he is so politically outspoken and he didn't care if that turned people off from seeing his movies. But what was odd to me was that he wasn't right leaning in his politics, which I could see a reason he could blame for not getting great parts, but he is very left leaning, which isn't as different from others in Hollywood, so for him to say that is the reason he's been relegated to straight-to-video for much of the decade when others who are just as vocal as he is, if not more, is just hogwash and complete blindness to whatever the real issue is.