comment #1

Bilge says ...

These ridiculous navel-gazer pieces always drive me crazy. I've never once worked a job with any of the generational battle-lines they keep referencing. I'm beginning to think I missed out. Or am I just being a typical Gen X cynic?

comment #2

Bilge says ...

WHOOPS. Commented on the wrong item. The "New Math" headline must have thrown me off.

comment #3

Eloi Manning says ...

I don't think they can use Twilight as an example of how stars are on the decline. If anything it's the opposite. Yes, the books were popular, but it can't be denied that Pattinson and Lautner are crucial to the teenage girls seeing it multiple times.

comment #4

Glenn Kenny says ...

I dunno. "Duplicity" was not just "hard to follow" by conventional standards, it also refused to deliver the kind of ending such films need (by conventional standards). "Land of the Lost" was dogshit. "Funny People"'s problem wasn't just that Sandler fans didn't want to see him in this kind of material, but that Sandler's fan base is eroding, or growing up as some might have it. I don't even know why Eddie Murphy is in this conversation any longer.

On the other hand, look at "Benjamin Button." It's gargantuan production budget tends to obscure the fact that, objectively, an approximately $130 million domestic gross is not hay, particularly for a nearly 3-hour picture. Brad Pitt's presence does have something to do with that.

The equation is changing, the alchemy needs to be done differently, but stars will continue to matter somehow.

comment #5

Glenn Kenny says ...

Aargh! I did that thing I can't stand and put an apostrophe on "its" where it doesn't belong. Sorry!

comment #6

Eloi Manning says ...

Brad Pitt also helped Basterds along to $100m+.

comment #7

QualityGibberish says ...

Those damn apostrophe's!

(Just wanted to touch GK's toes.)

comment #8

corey3rd says ...

stars are born every year and stars fade every year. stars try to stretch and many times they fail.

What's the issue here is the death of star marketers. People who know how to sell that difficult role or even sell the dumbest of films.

far as Julia Roberts goes, she hasn't had true star power since she made almost $100 million on America's Sweethearts back in 2001 - 8 years ago. She's a TMZ superstar at this point. You hire her at this point because of he talent and not because you're a lock to score $100 mill at the box office with her name above the title.

comment #9

le corbeau says ...

I read this same piece when the kids were all going to Friday the 13th and the biggest movie in history starred Dee Wallace Stone. It was ever thus.

comment #10

coxcable says ...

One of Hollywood's bigger failures in this decade is its seeming incompetence in growing new movie stars. With the exception of maybe Angelina Jolie, there just aren't any new ones.

And the pickens ARE there.... Rachel McAdams, Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Marlon Wayans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt ... just a few young actors who should be at iconic points in their career right now.

comment #11

thatmovieguy says ...

The under-performance of "Duplicity" had more to do with Universal's poor marketing than it did with the film. It opened March 20, against "I Love You, Man" (which Paramount had been screening relentlessly for weeks beforehand to build buzz) and "Knowing" (a terrible film that had intriguing commercials, which were on the air every 15 minutes). And "Duplicity"? Most people barely knew it was out there, and by the time they heard good word-of-mouth (and most people I heard from thought it was a terrific film) the movie was down to showing two times a day in most theaters. As for "Funny People," it was Sandler playing a highly unlikable character (personally, I didn't care if he died or not) in an overlong, underwhelming movie that promised comedy and delivered very little to laugh at. "Land of the Lost" and "Imagine That" are heartening signs that even the least-choosy audiences can sometimes spot claptrap. "Christmas Carol" will probably have a healthy run through the end of the year, although some parents I know have griped that portions of it was too grim for the little ones. My response: Show them "Muppet Christmas Carol" instead. What can you say? Dickens is dark, y'know?

comment #12

Josh Massey says ...

The real problem with Duplicity?

IT SUCKED.

comment #13

thatmovieguy says ...

Oh, and make no mistake: In the eyes of my 14-year-old niece and her classmates, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are every bit as big as Jim Carrey and Julia Roberts were to kids 15 years ago. "New Moon" may be "star-less" to people over 30, but it's the Milky Way to its target audience.

comment #14

EdHavens says ...

Stars won't hurt you if you're presenting a film people want to see, while stars won't help you if you're presenting a film people do not want to see.

The lack of A-list star power didn't hurt The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, but did it really hurt Funny People? Twenty-one years ago, Punchline mined similar material, and starred a two-time Academy Award winner and an actor who had just scored a massive hit a few months earlier in Big. Punchline was a damn good movie, but audiences just were not in the mood then for a drama about comedy then, and they're not in the mood for it now.

Hollywood keeps making movies about the making of movies, and audiences have constantly shunned them, no matter how good or bad they may have been. From Sunset Blvd. and The Bad and the Beautiful (both which did well in major cities in their first few weeks but were both considered to be less than successful after their initial theatrical run) to The Big Picture and The Player (the latter being a minor hit at $21m), audiences have shown they don't particularly care for movies about the movies. But we keep getting them. Some very good (Tim Burton's Ed Wood), some not so good (Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal), and almost universally ignored at the box office upon release.

The point is, there are many factors that go in to what makes a film successful or not. When people talk about Blair With or Paranormal Activity, they spend as much if not more time talking about how the films were marketed than the actual film itself. The Weinsteins pushed Tarantino's name as much if not more than Pitt's during the marketing of Basterds. And does it really matter who stars in a Steven Spielberg movie? The director is the star there, the one whom the marketers make the big attraction. There are no big stars in Precious, and no big stars in most of the Pixar movies.

When it comes down to it, you first need a movie with a storyline that enough of a segment of the population cares to see. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, if it had been the same movie without Brad and Angelina, would have likely been as big a hit as Doug Liman's direction was critical to the overall feel of the movie. Yet Brad or Angelina haven't had that big of a hit since, because most of their movies have failed to appeal to a mass audience. They've made some good movies in that time, but a good movie and a popular movie are often on different ends of the scale.

comment #15

Howlingman says ...

I think the "Star System" is still chugging along, and we're just seeing another "changing of the guard." Julia and Sandler are "out" while Pattinson and K-Stew are "in." They'll get their moment in the sun, until the newer, sleeker models come out, and then they'll be replaced.

comment #16

nodirectionhome says ...

The films listed as examples are individually horrible films on some level or another. Hollywood press likes to retread this overused fairy tale of the little film that could every ten years when the past decades ideas are exhausted and something appearing vibrant pops on the screen. HANGOVER, HURT-LOCKER, DISTRICT 9 among others aren't exactly "original" but they stand apart because they're not remakes or heavily researched marketed products; they're simply films. The major problem in Hollywood isn't just the "stars" but it's the fact the bar has been lowered significantly to what classifies as a "star" or worse yet as a memorable film. Jolie, Bullock, etc really ? Are they're going to be people crying and having discussions on WANTED when Jolie dies or THE PROPOSAL for Bullock? Yet both of these are major films. Society as a whole also bears a lot of responsibility for feeding on the crap Hollywood shovels out, it's recreating the old system of the early 40's until its collapse during the late '70s when Scorsese & Speilberg came along reinventing Hollywood and films. Without such a severe change the movie industry is likely on its last leg due to its own cannibalization

comment #17

DavidF says ...

It always struck me as stupid to give stars these $20M paydays since there is (obviously) more than that going into a movie's success.

Who was the biggest star of the Star Wars prequels? Ewan MacGregor? No - it was STAR WARS.
Same deal with Twilight. Make a movie of a teen bestseller with a handsome dude, make it not suck and you'll make money.

I know Julia Roberts was in Duplicity but are there really marketing people who expect the Pretty Woman/Erin Brokovich crowd to come out to it?

I mean, the whole article's premise is stupid....if you make a cool movie with a good buzz (District 9), people will see it. If you make a bad movie, it doesn't matter who is in it (Land of the Lost). If Ferrell makes Anchorman 2, people will be there and if there is no one famous in The Hobbit, people will be there for that too. Proving....nothing. And everything.

comment #18

DeeZee says ...

Glenn: Button made money, but it wasn't a big hit for what it cost.

Eloi: Well, he helped Basterds internationally, but domestically, it was below Burn After Reading's take.

DavidF: You think MacGregor would do Star Wars, just because he might have liked the OT? Please. You either jump on a cash-cow, or you lose, which is why FOX doesn't even make the money it could off those movies.

comment #19

EdHavens says ...

DeeZee... in what world do you live in that doesn't consider Button a big hit? $330m in worldwide boxoffice, plus another $42m in DVD/Blu-rauy sales, is not a big hit? And that's not including cable and television rights sales or any future ancillary markets.

Lemme guess... you're one of those people that sees domestic box office as the end-all, be-all of judging a film's success, even though that section can now mean as little as 10% to 25% of the total income for a major motion picture.

comment #20

DarthCorleone says ...

Please. Let's see Pattinson and Stewart open a movie that doesn't have Twilight in the title.

comment #21

DeeZee says ...

It's a minor hit because of the budget and P+A. Seven was a bigger hit in that regard.

comment #22

Gordon27 says ...

"Lemme guess... you're one of those people that sees domestic box office as the end-all, be-all of judging a film's success"

Now now, that's not fair. That's not what Deez does. He just selectively chooses which information to focus on to try and present movies as unsuccessful. He does tend to harp on about foreign gross not counting as much (like when he argued that the Paramount stockholders weren't happy that it made more money abroad than at home), but you're ascribing logic where there's certainly none to be found. He basically decides in advance what movies won't be successful and then ignores facts which prove otherwise.

Like this nugget, for instance:
"Eloi: Well, he helped Basterds internationally, but domestically, it was below Burn After Reading's take. "

Apparently, to DZ, the fact that a movie starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt would outgross a movie only starring Brad Pitt proves that Brad Pitt isn't a star in America. It doesn't matter that Clooney was the main star of the movie, it doesn't matter that, factually speaking, 'Burn After Reading' US-grossed half what 'Basterds' has US-grossed to date. He will continue to argue as if he has proven his point.

comment #23

EdHavens says ...

DeeZee... that Seven was a "bigger" hit is immaterial. When all is said and done, Button will have grossed more than double it's production costs + P&A budget, and in any other person's book, that's a big hit. Especially considering its production costs alone is more than your entire family, from the time your ancestors climbed out of the muck to when your bloodlines dies off for whatever reason, will ever make.

comment #24

DeeZee says ...

Gordon: "It doesn't matter that Clooney was the main star of the movie, it doesn't matter that, factually speaking, 'Burn After Reading' US-grossed half what 'Basterds' has US-grossed to date. "

Not if you take into account P+A.

Ed: It's a big hit for a movie with lower expectations attached to it. But it was Fincher's family-friendly cash-in with Pitt released around the holiday season. And when Pitt's ex-wife's dog movie ends up being more profitable across the board, you could easly argue that 'Button was a disappointment in general.

comment #25

EdHavens says ...

That you think Button, a film that features more separation, death and loss than any other Fincher, is somehow family-friendly speaks volumes about your character and your general mindset. And no longer worth spending any more time talking with.

comment #26

DeeZee says ...

EdHavens: "That you think Button, a film that features more separation, death and loss than any other Fincher, is somehow family-friendly speaks volumes about your character and your general mindset."

Um, it was being compared to Forrest Gump and released during the holiday season. And it was PG-13 to boot. So it was clearly targeting a certain audience, whether you'd like to admit it or not.

comment #27

DeeZee says ...

I didn't notice 'til now, but Fantastic Mr. Fox had a very good PTA last weekend. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fantasticmrfox.htm