Hollywood rethinking A-List actors?

[Dr. Evil]

It's just that a lot of movie actors are transitioning to TV. John Lithgow, James Spader, Glenn Close, Gabriel Byrne, Gary Sinise, Lawrence Fisburne, Holly Hunter, Sally Field, Kiefer Sutherland, Alec Baldwin, Charlie Sheen, Kyra Sedgwick, Timothy Hutton and Toni Collette have made the transition (successfully) from movies to TV. Close, Field, Lithgow, Hunter, Sinise, Hutton, Baldwin and Collette have multiple Oscar Nominations between them. Field, Hutton and Hunter have won Oscars. Hell, the FX Show Damages (which also stars Glenn Close) recently had William Hurt, a highly respected and talented actor with Multiple Oscar Nominations himself (including one win).

Let's not forget Chevy Chase. At one point he was one of the most bankable comedic actors during the 80's and while his career has not been much of a success the last 20 years or so, he's making a comeback on the NBC show "Community" and he's very funny in that.

Are the movies devoid of legit talent? A strong case can be made in favor of that notion. But not Hollywood. Television has a lot of movie stars who have jumped to that medium and all of the ones I've mentioned above have made that successful transition.

Also movie stars have made guest appearances on TV shows in recent years.

Oh yeah, and Dennis Hopper on Traffic and Edward James Olmos on BSG.

 

[Red Mask]

Look on the bright side at least Micheal Bay loves REMAKES.

His production of Friday the 13th was hardly worthwhile. America Olivo shakes her boobs? I bet we'll get 3x that in ***** Slap!

 

[Red Mask]

It's just that a lot of movie actors are transitioning to TV. John Lithgow, James Spader, Glenn Close, Gabriel Byrne, Gary Sinise, Lawrence Fisburne, Holly Hunter, Sally Field, Kiefer Sutherland, Alec Baldwin, Charlie Sheen, Kyra Sedgwick, Timothy Hutton and Toni Collette have made the transition (successfully) from movies to TV. Close, Field, Lithgow, Hunter, Sinise, Hutton, Baldwin and Collette have multiple Oscar Nominations between them. Field, Hutton and Hunter have won Oscars. Hell, the FX Show Damages (which also stars Glenn Close) recently had William Hurt, a highly respected and talented actor with Multiple Oscar Nominations himself (including one win).

Let's not forget Chevy Chase. At one point he was one of the most bankable comedic actors during the 80's and while his career has not been much of a success the last 20 years or so, he's making a comeback on the NBC show "Community" and he's very funny in that.

Are the movies devoid of legit talent? A strong case can be made in favor of that notion. But not Hollywood. Television has a lot of movie stars who have jumped to that medium and all of the ones I've mentioned above have made that successful transition.

Also movie stars have made guest appearances on TV shows in recent years.

Oh yeah, and Dennis Hopper on Traffic and Edward James Olmos on BSG.

Don't forget the Internet. Actors are now doing webisodes and shorts that get placed online.

 

[Aesop Rocks]

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/11/16/is-the-hollywood-movie-star-dead/

A Reuters piece that’s been making the rounds this weekend speculates that Hollywood may be thinking twice about banking on A-list celebrities in the future. The piece points to recent low-budget and star-free fare like The Hangover, District9, and Paranormal Activity that each went on to be wildly successful, and contrasts them with big-budget, star-studded flops like A Christmas Carol, Land of the Lost, and Funny People. The overall lesson seems to be that star-power doesn’t have nearly the draw that it used to, and that budgets aren’t much of a factor for audiences either.
But of course, I don’t really think this is news to most of us. While some may bemoan the tastes of general audiences when they overwhelmingly support movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I don’t think they did so for hunky Shia LaBeouf. Instead, they were probably looking to revisit the magic from the first film–which, let’s face it, was far better than it had any right to be. (Or the simpler answer, they just wanted to see things blow up.)


In any case, it was the quality of the concept of Transformers 2 (magic revisited and/or ‘splosions) that most likely led audiences showing up in droves, and not stars. You could apply a similar logic to The Hangover and its ilk mentioned above. I’d like to believe that audiences are smarter than we give them credit for—or at the very least, most can tell when studios are pushing crap on them. And sometimes they completely surprise us, just look at how well Inglourious Basterds performed.
Pronouncements of the movie star disappearing are nothing new—it’s simply something that always tends to come up after a wave of high-profile flops. I think there will always be room for stars, the lesson we need to learn is how to use them. As the Reuters piece mentions, studios are looking to scale back on large up front salaries for big stars, and instead ask them to bank of potentially greater rewards if the film breaks even. And if some stars want to remain big-salary hogs who care more about a paycheck than their work, then perhaps it is time for them to step down.
Ultimately, the success of these lower budget features is a good thing for cinema. It makes studios less uneasy about moving forward with low budget features, and opens the doors for innovative new projects down the line. And after all, releasing several smaller features instead of relying on returns from a few big-budget films is a much safer bet for them as well.

 

[Evil Twin]

The "flopping" of A Christmas Carol is vastly overstated. Especially after a low percentage drop second weekend and the Holidays upcoming.

I tend to think that there are still "stars", Will Smith in particular, but the current cycle really pigeon holes them. Adam Sandler will open a silly comedy, but won't open a more serious film. Meryl Streep will add to the box office of a summer movie that leans towards women, but can't make her more serious fare transcend the arthouse. Angelina Jolie helps in an action film, but not in anything more serious. Robert Downey Jr. can't open a straight drama like The Soloist, but a light action adventure film he's an asset to.

Part of that is Hollywood's latest cycle of remakes and presold adaptations. It's hard to distinguish a star when the high concept behind the movie is already geared to engineer a response. And when your primary audience is teens, you are going to have a more fickle response, especially to actors who may have done their best work more than 5 years ago.

 

[matrix_ghost]

The "flopping" of A Christmas Carol is vastly overstated. Especially after a low percentage drop second weekend and the Holidays upcoming.

.

I was just about to make a post about this .
yeah seems many people just selected Carol because of the first opening weekend numbers. True , i'll admit that i had expected a far bigger opening weekend ( somewhere along 60 million mark) however nowadays i'm more interested in drop off then opening weekend.

And Carol didn't drop that much. It's made like what 36 million the previous weekend and 24 million this weekend. That's an excellent drop. Many BO analysts are already saying that Carol will keep on going much like Polar Express did.

 

[terry78]

Christmas Carol will pick up again next month.

 

[matrix_ghost]

Christmas Carol will pick up again next month.

With Avatar snatching both the IMAX and 3-d screens ?

 

[Evil Twin]

With Avatar snatching both the IMAX and 3-d screens ?

That's still over a month away. And, as a Holiday film, A Christmas Carol should play well over Thanksgiving, when Christmas season really kicks off, and the first weeks of December. It's not going to do $200 million, but it wouldn't exactly be surprising if it holds around $20 million for a couple of weekends yet, which would get it in the $150 million range. That's not a flop.

Neither is Watchmen which is the other side of the argument with analysts saying that lack of star power may have hurt it. But, really, the expensive flat out flops were basically Land of the Lost, Funny People, and The Box and that's perhaps too few films to draw many conclusions from. And there are still star driven movies that succeed. Gran Torino being an example. Arguably Taken which certainly was elevated about B-movie status through the presence of Liam Neeson. Valkyrie did fairly well and I think the star power helped it. The presences of Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep probably helped The Proposal and Julie & Julia.

I do think it's fair to say that there are few true A-list stars any more. Will Smith basically and then maybe a half dozen others in their natural genre. And $20 million paychecks and gross points shouldn't be thrown around easily. But, I still think it helps when you have an expensive movie to have a star to build a traditional marketing campaign around.

 

[matrix_ghost]

That's still over a month away. And, as a Holiday film, A Christmas Carol should play well over Thanksgiving, when Christmas season really kicks off, and the first weeks of December. It's not going to do $200 million, but it wouldn't exactly be surprising if it holds around $20 million for a couple of weekends yet, which would get it in the $150 million range. That's not a flop.

I can see Carol playing up well till the release date of Avatar. After that i'm really not so sure. Yes Polar Express played well during the holiday seasons , but the movie also had great help from the IMAX 3-d release.
As of now it'll be playing in IMAX 3-d and reg. 3-d screens. Post that , it'll definately have to compete with other 2-d releases.
I can see it hitting 150 million however with reports of the budget ranging from 175-200 million , it'll definately be declared a flop if it can't make that number back. BO reports say that the foreign BO really hasn't been stellar and the studio is hoping that in the USthe movie will need to perform better

 

[dark_b]

i refuse to belive that this is a 200 million movie. i know that the animators tryed very good. but the movement is in no way close to pixar movies. so not stylized enough. on the other hand its not realistic.

sorry to all who worked on the effect.s but its not coming close to pixar movies in terms of look and animation. and for this 200 millions?

 

[matrix_ghost]

i refuse to belive that this is a 200 million movie. i know that the animators tryed very good. but the movement is in no way close to pixar movies. so not stylized enough. on the other hand its not realistic.

sorry to all who worked on the effect.s but its not coming close to pixar movies in terms of look and animation. and for this 200 millions?

I have to yet to see Carol but i think you're being overly harsh. Every Pixar human character is modeled with a cartoon look and not in the realistic looks that Zemeckis is going for.

And while you may not believe that this cost that much , fact that
1) Pixar doesn't do mo-cap. Zemeckis does
2) Pixar hires their actors for voice-over work . That's what like a month or so. Zemeckis hires his actors for a much longer time due to them physically being involved in shooting the movie.
3) Pixar hires cheaper actors. Zemeckis hires expensive actors.

Back when Beowulf was being made , Roger Avaray was interviewed by AICN. He said that Zemeckis came to them and said that they could go all out when writing the script. He was literally saying that he had the money to spend a million dollars per minute.

Hence why i believe that Carol could definately cost 200 million but i'm thinking more along the lines of 170 million.

 

[terry78]

Zemeckis has the means to do the **** he wants. He's in the Spielberg/Lucas/Burton club. The movies he's made in the past are still making him money, so if he wants to do mocap the rest of his life, he can.

 

[matrix_ghost]

Zemeckis has the means to do the **** he wants. He's in the Spielberg/Lucas/Burton club. The movies he's made in the past are still making him money, so if he wants to do mocap the rest of his life, he can.

Too bad Cameron is beating his ass when it comes to CG realism.

I mean seriously. Zemeckis has made 3 mo-cap movies and trying to make them realistic and so far still hasn't achieved photorealism yet Cameron takes on shot and achieves just that

 

[dark_b]

when it comes to CGI you need to be a perfectionist.

 

[Jordacar]

Too bad Cameron is beating his ass when it comes to CG realism.

I mean seriously. Zemeckis has made 3 mo-cap movies and trying to make them realistic and so far still hasn't achieved photorealism yet Cameron takes on shot and achieves just that

Yeah, I wonder if BobZ is pissed at Cameron for stealing his thunder.

 

[matrix_ghost]

Yeah, I wonder if BobZ is pissed at Cameron for stealing his thunder.

Doubt it. Along with Spielberg and PJ , Zemeckis was also there to test the tech of cameron. He was also impressed but preferred his approach to making his movies.

 

[Mace Dolex]

The degradation of acting nowadays is unfortunate. Due to the fact that anyone can be in films. Regardless if he or she is a model, singer, dancer, athlete, or a reality television star. A lot of men and women have no business in the motion picture industry, but if the studios think they can generate revenue for their company it doesn’t matter.

THANK YOU!

I just hate how money is being thrown around to no-talent hacks who make it into the industry without any form of training while lesser known struggling actors are waiting in the wings.

 

[Evil Twin]

THANK YOU!

I just hate how money is being thrown around to no-talent hacks who make it into the industry without any form of training while lesser known struggling actors are waiting in the wings.

This is not a new phenomenom. At all. There is no golden age of acting where everyone was rigorously trained in acting and only the best of the best got feature roles.

Houdini, Al Jolson, Buster Crabbe, Johnny Weissmuller, Sinatra, Ricky Martin, Elvis, and Jim Brown are a smattering of examples. Plus all the kid actors over the years.

 

[Timstuff]

The star system crumbling could be good for the industry IMO. Not only would it mean that an obscene amount of money no longer has to go to the lead actor in proportion to the amount of work they contribute to the movie, but it also would mean that less exposed actors might get more access to high profile projects. There is no actor in Hollywood who doesn't appear in flops, and with more and more star vehicles flopping, I think the studios are eventually going to catch on.

 

[BlackLantern]

I agree...the era of the mega star holding a production or studio hostage is probably over

 

[redfirebird2008]

So, according to you, everyone who likes TF (and movies like that), also watch stupid reality shows. What an incredibly idiotic thing to say. I love TF and I don't watch any of those ridiculous Idol-type crap. I like 24, Dexter and The Tudors, among other things.

Not everyone, just a vast majority. There are always exceptions to the rule of course.

 

[terry78]

IF you have a movie that is an original premise, those are the ones you need name actors for. If it's an established property, those are the ones you can cast lesser knowns. You have a screenplay that is a brainchild of a talented writer that has no ties to anything, you may need a Will Smith or someone to carry it. The live action version of Farmville or some **** like that, you can cast a bunch of B-list people.

 

[redfirebird2008]

I agree...the era of the mega star holding a production or studio hostage is probably over

That's a good thing. Perhaps they'll realize that it's about story and good acting across the board (regardless of the name brand).

 

[BlackLantern]

Not everyone, just a vast majority. There are always exceptions to the rule of course.

that's a big brush you're painting with there