Shape-changing robots outdraw Julia Roberts. A Disney Channel heroine is a bigger box office attraction than George Clooney.
The death of the movie star as a marketing must is upon us.
But should audiences applaud this change or rue the day movie stars fell back down to earth?
Economically speaking, the change is a plus for the industry. No longer will films be tied down by exorbitant contracts.
It also means a simple screen comedy shouldn’t run over $100 million. That won’t stop studios from lavishing blockbusters with costly special effects.
But it’s a start.
The shift will also mean a smaller comfort zone for actors, who may have to work harder to get their gigs. They’ll also feel more pressure from unknowns who could be cast in parts more easily than ever before.
A-list actors will likely be more inclined to consider independent films which offer richer acting challenges and better chances for Oscar nominations.
Part of the fault for this belongs to the stars themselves. They appear too often on too many magazines and TV chat shows, and occasionally delve too far into their own likes and dislikes.
The sense of mystery surrounding your favorite actor simply doesn’t exist anymore.
Imagine Sean Penn’s raw talent minus the ideologically driven pronouncements and paparazzi inspired fisticuffs.
Audiences have no idea what an unknown actor thinks about global warming, parenting rights or any other testy subject. And that’s all the better when the lights go down and the movie begins.
(Photo: Miley Cyrus as her Hannah Montana alter ego, is as big a box office star as someone like Julia Roberts in 2009/Walt Disney Pictures)
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
1. “The shift will also mean a smaller comfort zone for actors, who may have to work harder to get their gigs.
God forbid the rich and famous have to be challenged and work REALLY hard for thier millions!
2. “They’ll also feel more pressure from unknowns who could be cast in parts more easily than ever before.”
Shocking new headline:
‘Thousands of talented unknowns FINALLY catch a break!’
3. “A-list actors will likely be more inclined to consider
independent films which offer challenges and better chances for Oscar nominations.”
OH no! Richer acting and better quality films?! Oh the humanity!!
um- is there a down side?
Perhaps there is- somewhere in your intent,
but I have missed it if it is in your article.
Anything that drives quality up is great.
And it sickens me to see the downward spiral of people who have the nerve to claim they are “artists”.
Interesting trend changes to note though!
cheers!
Cable TV and computers killed the movie star. Everyone is famous.
ReaderRedux, formerly Reader
“Entertainment” killed the stars mostly. Of course things like their horrid behavior and idiotic causes pushed many away, but the single most valuable piece, “is the movie entertaining” is the thing that destroyed them. Once one would believe that a movie would be good because a particular actor wouldn’t have their name tied to a project if it wasn’t good. Now with all the Eddie Murphy flops and countless other tragedies in film making no one can tie “A-List” to “A-list movie” because they are more in it for the money than the art.
Good point, Sandra. There are very few actors who, when they pick a project, you know it’s either terrific or has that potential.
The sense of trust the audience has with actors is mostly gone.
I’d say Tom Hanks falls into that category, but why on Earth would Tom Cruise even consider “Mission: Impossible IV?” Is there one sentient being on earth clamoring for that?
Agreed, there is too much information about actors these days (and most of it is unpleasant, whether political or personal). Studios used to ‘protect’ their stars by muzzling the press or the actors thenselves.
Also, currently, movie studios seem to ignore the tastes of the public, peddling the same product over and over.
I miss the aura of mystery. We’re absolutely saturated in personal details and what so-and-so thinks of this-and-that. What I wouldn’t give for an actor who, when he opens his yap in public, just says he loves to entertain, that he appreciates his audience and his fans, and that he feels privileged to work. And then shuts his yap.
And, I concur with Sandra. There have to be countless good stories out there just waiting for the big screen, but we keep getting repetitive, assembly-line junk — and, inexplicably, big stars attaching themselves to this junk. To me, it shows laziness and incredible contempt for the audience.
Hollywood is dying, just like the rest of the American economy is dying.
There’ll always be a handful of fat cats at the top of the food chain that
gorge at the money trough, a piddling of middle dwellers always managing
to just barely scrape by, and the vast majority at the bottom fighting over the leftover table scraps.
This dynamic now applies to just about every single area of American
enterprise. And anybody who thinks it’s going to get any better under the
imposed Socialist Welfare State needs to share with the rest of us whatever
it is they’re smoking.
The American Dream is now nothing more than a rapidly dimming memory…
How apropos that today’s HuffPost has an article about “Gwyneth’s Latest Cleanse”; if only we can flush BOTH out of our systems for good!