Topical Posting? Why not!
I picked this article out of my gmail news headline filter:
A-List Stars Flailing at the Box Office
It’s a decent read. I was gonna block-quote some of it, but I couldn’t find a really choice part.
The article got me thinking though. So much so that after I had closed the article and was going to turn off my computer, go downstairs, and make brekkers, I decided to blarg it instead.
And now here we are.
Most of the movies it mentions are ones that I considered seeing. Although I hadn’t even heard of Duplicity and Imagine That. But… I didn’t. I work weird hours, and usually the only person I talk to about movies is my roommate with no job. And he’s usually already DLed and watched them. I never sweat about missing a movie in the theatre anyway, because I know it will be out on DVD (or the webs) soon enough for 1/3 or less of the price of a ticket.
I think that the end of the article could have made a better point though. People Blackberrying their friends saying “LoL, Travolta is too old to be a terrorist” is probably a potent force against people seeing these bad movies. And I applaud that. The only memory I have of going to see a movie in high school was fucking Boogeyman. It’s probably the worst movie I have ever seen. If I’d had any idea what it was like before I walked into that theatre, I would have told my friends to get fucked if we were watching that garbage (because I was even mouthier to my friends back in high school than I am now). And check out that Wiki page because that movie made $68M on a $20M budget. I love the quote at the end trying to spin the focus towards this summer’s blockbusters being a bad crop. What a load of shit.
However, no ammount of Blackberrying is going to stop the people lined up on opening night. And these days opening night is all that counts anyway. If a movie doesn’t make a profit in the first 2 or 3 days, then it’s considered a failure, and people start hoping to make it up in DVD sales.
But nuts to all that. Read it yourself. Start some commentary! Do we need stars to sell movies? People Like Pitt, Depp, and… Wow, Julia Roberts is the only woman on that list… Are all talented actors, but what should their place really be?
Is the movie theatre headed in the same slow direction as the public library (or the real theatres, for that matter)?
Stay tuned to see the story unfold in the comments!
The Conversation {25 comments}
I don’t know that I’ve ever gone to see a movie because of the person starring in it. A lot of the time, I base my impressions off of the trailer, and it has to look like something new and exciting. Also, there are some writers and directors who I prefer to see, but rarely ever actors.
Movie genre is also a big draw for me. I like thrillers, crime drama, and things of that nature. I’m also a big fan of Pixar movies, and anything traditionally animated by Disney.
I never go to a movie for an actor, I think that’s stupid. Big name actors are not big name because they’re better than everyone else, they’re famous for being famous and it’s about time people realized that. I just got back from one of the festival’s plays and any of the guys in that could act as well as a hollywood actor, they just aren’t big names so they don’t get big movie parts. And since they don’t get big movie parts they don’t become big names. It’s a circular situation.
“Brad Pitt is a super-superstar at the apex of his popularity, and he’s a large part of why people want to see this movie (Inglorious Bastards),”
- quote from the article
Um, no, Quentin Tarantino is a large part of why I want to see this movie. He tells stories in a gory, uncompromising way. I watch movies and TV shows based on the quality of the story and film making, not how many times the actors have been mentioned in “People magazine.”
I loved the series “Firefly” when I watched it this summer, the characters of Shepard Book and Jayne were two of my favourites but I don’t have a clue who those actors were, and I don’t care. I’ve been watching “How I met your mother” more recently and it’s fantastic, but the only actor I know from that is Dr. Horrible, and he’s not why I watch it. I started watching it because other people around me did and said it was funny.
The Star Wars original trilogy has to be one of the highest grossing trilogies ever, but all the actors in it were unknown at the time, and the only actor who became famous out of it was Harrison Ford. Luke Skywalker is one of my favourite characters in all of fiction, and wikipedia tells me that he never had another major acting role. In fact, nowadays he does voice acting for video games. (Oh, fun fact, he’s not even the voice actor for Luke Skywalker in video games! Weird eh?)
So, in conclusion the idea that big actors are worth millions to be in movies is, and always has been, total bullshit. I wish more money would go to the writers, since they actually determine more of a movies quality. (And I would hope its revenue, however we all know that’s not always true.)
Oh, and one more thing.
The writer of the article, displaying their incredible ability to care more about “celebrity news” than real news, entirely neglected to even offer a passing mention of the worst recession in decades to be a contributing factor in the decline in movie revenues. I mean, it’s understandable if some people don’t think about it much right now, but if you work at a newspaper surely you could try to keep up on current events. Am I being unreasonable here?
Well, couldn’t be bothered to read the article. But I don’t even care enough to know half of the super star actors are. Sure I know who Brad Pitt is but ask me who play Harry Potter & I’ll stare at you like a deer caught in headlights.
There is only 1 actor I will watch; Jackie Chan. And that kists would only contain his older good movies usually on afternoon TV, awesome oldschool kung-fu movies all with the same plot.
And watching based on director? Hell no. Shit, I only know 4: Lucas, Jackson, Spielberg and Kubrick. I usually don’t know who directed unless they advertise it to the ends of the earth.
And lets look at District 9. I haven;t actually seen the movie yet – I’m dying too – but its some no name director. Sure Jackson was supervising or training or whatever; doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t his movie. What about Slumdog Millionaire? Who directed that?
I also think that glorifying people for their acting or directing skills is lame and only leads to unstable personalities, usually along with overpaid douche bags cough*pro-sports*.
Not to mention other stupid things like Paula Abdul from American Idol asking for $20 million a year to be a judge on that god forsaken show. The part that makes me the most angry is how they will donate maybe $10,000 to a dance/singing school as charity and talk about how important these things are in life.
I’m going to stop here before I have an aneurysm trying to comprehend the madness of the world.
How can you not know about Tarantino, Wolfgang?
I think a director or writer has a lot more impact on the creative process than actors. I understand liking directors and writers. They are the ones who shape the story. The actors – while in no way having an easy job – follow instructions. Seems to me like crediting the actors so highly is like favouring the people who manufacture light bulbs over the person who invented it. It is misguided. I accept credit where credit is due…but the credit should be in appropriate scales.
And the District 9 director made those awesome Halo shorts that were released when Peter Jackson was going to be making that film. Seeing that he has done something awesome like that gives me faith in him, and the fact that Peter Jackson will get involved and attach his name to it makes me think that there is some quality to it.
I’m inclined to believe that more because I feel directors are concerned more with the artistic integrity of their work and their name than actors…so, someone will act in a piece of shit film because it comes with a two million dollar pay cheque, but a director wouldn’t tarnish his name with it.
But maybe I’m wrong about that.
Forgot about Tarantino. Im not really a big fan of alot of his stuff though. Pulp fiction (and Ingloruos Bastards.. haven’t see it, but want too & looks good) are about the only films I really like.
Yea, I know about the Halo-ness to District 9, still don’t know/care the guys name. Will I if he makes an awesome Halo movie? Maybe a little, but doubtful.
I can appreciate their art and still think they dont deserve the truck loads of money that they make; then again, I do have some socialist leanings.
Ok, District 9 is good (still wanna see it tho) and it gives you faith in the director, but doing something well once doesn’t mean he is a robot and everything he makes will piss sunshine and rainbows. I’ll agree, it greatly improves the odds, but why should I care?
If he was a crap director and was moving onto the Halo movie. The most I could do would be to troll the Bungie forums bitching about how the universe is unbalanced like every other retard out there. And because its a Microsoft thing & not Bungie (a company who cares), no amount of whining will change Mr. monopoly’s mind. A shitty Halo movie would be made, I would watch it without paying, and talk about how lame it was.
What did I gain from caring about the guy? I got angry & frustrated. So why should I follow the lives/celebrity-status of those that will never directly impact my life? Why would I blindly pay money to go see a movie because X made it?
Hell, I almost hate the Halo 2 multiplayer. But Bungie made so I must love it, right? Fuck no. I still love the campaign, but the game in general was a bit of fail (from my prospective; financially it did well).
I agree with you over the actor/director name tarnishing bit, but I still don’t care about them.
I can accept credit where credit is due. But to me, that credit shouldn’t be worth as many millions as it is.
Wow. Perhaps I’m biased here, but the only consistent thing that seems to be coming from everyone is… an impression that actors are interchangeable cogs, perhaps?
But, for more targetted replies:
Granite: Nothing, really. A reasonable opinion concisely stated. Nothing to say here that won’t be duplicated later.
Danger:
-Actors are important. You make me cry when you say hurtful things about them. Your circular reasoning makes it impossible for anyone to become a major star. Brad Pitt has a very impressive body of work going back 2 decades. Also, acting in film and on stage are somewhat more different than they appear (although stage acting is such a poor way to make a living that you have to really really love it in order to do it).
-An odd connection between Adam Baldwin and Mark Hamill: The only work the Firefly people have gotten since the show ended was voice acting cameos in Halo3. Although they’re now taking on major voice roles in the upcoming Halo ODST.
-Mark Hamill was type-cast after playing Luke Skywalker. He went on to do less memorable work on stage and in television. He can’t voice act Luke Skywalker in video games… because he’s too old to voice a character he did 30 years ago.
-Good acting saves bad writing every time. And bad acting kills good writing. Show me a high-grossing movie with a brilliantly written screenplay and no good actors and I’ll give you a high five.
-Aaaand, you forget that Hollywood was built on the Great Depression. Escapism sells well in bad economic times. I’m sure that a lot of people in the movie business were excited, rather than reticent, about this summer.
Wolfgang:
-”couldn’t be bothered to read the article”. And yet you still give me half a page of text…
-Amusing that you bring up Harry Potter, given in which it was mentioned in the article you didn’t read.
-You don’t know any actors and don’t know any directors… But don’t explain how you pick the movies you watch. Note: Most of the movies you end up hearing about are made by good directors or cast with good actors.
-Glorifying people for being good at something is lame… Meaning that the only yardstick to measure a film by is its gross? Please re-read the part about Boogeyman.
-Something non-related about American Idol. If you did your reasearch, you might see that $20 million is probably not an unreasonable ammount to ask given the piles of money that AI generates in a single TV season. But I’m not going to bother reading anything to back that up.
Granite again:
-You assume an amusing collusion between writers and directors. The opposite is far more often the case.
-Acting is an art. A director can imagine anything. The actor has to do it. Brad Pitt (to use the only name that has come up in the comments) can fucking do it. When someone of that calibre signs on to your movie, you know that the story you want to tell is in good hands.
-As regards lightbulbs, curious choice of example. I think Edison was a cunt (and let’s not get into semantics about who really invented the lightbulb). Fun fact: He lived in Stratford for a short while, working for the railroad. He fled one night after he fell asleep at the switches and caused a crash.
-Integrity has little to do with the film business. Writers want to write greatest story ever told. Directors have the sticky job of making that story tellable on film. Actors have to not disappoint everyone. But they all get to bend over and love it when the producer gets involved.
Back to Wolf:
-Tarantino’s only made 7 (or 8, keep reading) films. You named two of them. I imagine you’ve heard of Grindhouse and Kill Bill. Am I to assume you didn’t like those three (or 4 if you consider Grindhouse to be 2 films)? That leaves Jackie Brown and Reservoir Dogs, which I figure you probably haven’t seen. But still.
-”I can appreciate their art and still think they dont deserve the truck loads of money that they make”. Not only the most salient point you make, but also the most nicely phrased.
-The rest of this comment borders on vitriolic abuse. Not really worth responding to.
Also, I think I smell dueling comments here. Let’s try and stay away from that.
- i have seen Reservoir dogs. its a good film, i just dont like it personally. I have also seen Kill Bill. Did not like that movie. Ive seen a few parts of grindhose & it looked ok, but didnt look amazing or anything.
-My point about AI was that people make way more than they need to. Yes the show my gross alot, but that doesnt mean that judging the people requires such a high salary. I believe ryan seacreast is making $15 million a year for 3 years. they maybe have the cash for it, but i think more than 70% of that could be going to a muc better cause.
what really angers me (so you think you can dance) is that they had this bit on people donating $10,000 and a few man hours to a dance school for the under privileged, but they talk about it like it was worse than AIDS, cancer, and world hungry combine. Yet they sit on their ass and make many millions all for them selves.
-no, a movies gross is not the only yardstick to measure a movie by. It can still be a good movie with good acting, effects, and story, but the people involved shouldnt be praised to near-god ststus for it.
-I pick the movies i want to watch based on my reactions from the trailer on tv. I saw the trailer for District 9 in theatre; no actors mentioned, no word of PJ. Just a unique and oddly new scifi story. From the clips presented, the film looked interesting to me.
-”couldn’t be bothered to read the article”. And yet you still give me half a page of text…
yet you sound surprised :P
I need to make a clarifying point here. In my second comment, I was trying to argue the point that directors and writers are not completely detached from the success of a movie. That good writing and competent directing is also necessary for something not to turn out like garbage.
I’m not in favour of removing actors from a golden pedestal just so I can build a monument to directors and writers, and worship them in the same way. I just don’t think it makes sense that Brad Pitt (although a very talented actor with – as Liam said – a rich portfolio of work) seems to be the centre focus for a film like Inglorious Basterds, which is – by and large – the product of Quentin Tarantino’s unrelenting love and commitment to film. I don’t think the people manufacturing the light bulb deserve MORE credit than the inventor, but that is not to say that they don’t deserve some or equal credit (to use again the analogy that Liam seems to dislike due to his anti-Edison leanings :P). Otherwise, where do our lightbulbs come from?
I had a long comment following this about your comment RE: Firefly actors. Made it into a post instead. Check it.
http://redcardgroup.com/granite/?p=3174
Oh, and I guess, technically that comment was made in the defence of what Andrew said too. I’m a defender of all!
“Show me a high-grossing movie with a brilliantly written screenplay and no good actors and I’ll give you a high five.”
The Matrix. I will take my high-five in person.
Also, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. WALL·E. Yeah. Three high-fives are an order, I think.
Who played WALL-E again? Yeah…yeah that’s what I thought. So you can’t tell me that you need to pull in someone for twenty million dollars to play a part that any one of thousands of noname actors could play just as well. It’s really about budgeting your film.
Also, as for all of this “makes too much money” talk. There’s no such thing as “too much money” unless you owe it, or someone else is making it. Not one of us would see forty dollars on the street and only pick up twenty because forty dollars is “Too much money”!
I’m not saying Brad Pitt is a bad actor, I’m saying that there are plenty of other actors (example being those from Firefly) that are AS GOOD (not sure how to bold, so caps it is) as him, but make a tiny fraction of what he does for a movie. I say that you could replace him with Nathan Fillion in any movie and get the same effect.
As for how big names enter the vicious cycle I mentioned, they get cast into a lower budget film that has huge success, and subsequently get paid more for their next films because they’re more famous now.
I’m not saying highly paid actors are bad, I’m saying that for every 20 million dollar actor I think there’s 1000 lower priced actors that are just as good.
Hence why I don’t care who is in a movie when I decide whether or not I want to go see it. The original point of the article was that “OMG you guyz, movies with A-list actors aren’t topping the revenue charts!” My response to that is “No shit, that’s because I don’t care who’s in a movie.” The above point about A-list actors being replaceable is to give the reason behind why I feel this way.
The original post itself took a more polarized view on the issue so as to generate conversation.
Stew! I had to approve your comment… Does that mean that you’ve never commented here before?
However, no high-fives for you! (Except that I will obviously high-five you every time I see you because you’re fucking awesome)
-The Matrix also stars LAURENCE FUCKING FISHBURNE
-Lock Stock was a good choice… Except for its pitiful $3 million gross in North America. Kevin Smith movies do better than that at the box office.
(Also, on a serious tangent, British films tend to be replete with bit-part actors who can act the socks off of normal North American actors. So Lock Stock is a well-written, poorly grossing film that hemorrhages good actors. Not super-star actors, but that’s not how my challenge was written)
After the pause Lock Stock gave me I was expecting anything other than:
-Wall-E? Are you out of your mind, boy? I appreciate your stepping up to my challenge. But why on earth would you include Wall-E? Terry Schaivo could have played Wall-E because Wall-E is an animated character with a 20 word vocabulary. They could have voiced Wall-E with Microsoft Sam. I’m going to DQ Wall-E for 2 reasons:
1) I said well-written. For a movie to possess that accolade, it must contain well-written dialogue. And there is no such thing in Wall-E (not that I’m not a fan of the film, btw). As mentioned, the title character barely says anything.
2) The dialogue could be overlooked if Wall-E were a live-action flick. One of the charms of the film is in how well the relationships are conveyed without dialogue .But, the motions, emotions, settings, etc were all done at Pixar or Dreamworks (whichever). From a non-dialogue perspective, Wall-E has no actors. Yes, there are the people who put on the ball-suits and supply baseline motions for the wireframes. But then there are the 1000 animators who make that look good. That’s not acting.
Danger: “The original post itself took a more polarized view on the issue so as to generate conversation.”
And shit did it work. I don’t think I’ve had a post with this many hot comments for a long long long long long fucking time.
@stew:
i would probably take it too, who wouldnt take it when its offered to you? I just think its a little sad that we live in a society where an actor can make $20 million a movie yet we have a doctor shortage, underfunded schools, world hungry, etc…
@liam:
I would argue you on wall-e. although there was next to no dialogue, the movie still managed to portray powerful emotions and a meaning story/message. I would say that because of the lack of dialogue, doing this is even more of a feat.
To be able to tweak the robots beep and adjust his lenses and be able to extract so many emotions from the viewer as they did, while making the screenplay enjoyable, is excellent writing in my mind. But maybe you’re just a little bit heartless ;)
Also, your first point DQing wall-e: it must contain well written dialogue. Are you saying no film made before 1927 was a good film? I can guarantee you there are high grossing films with no well known actors from that time, my friend; with and without dialogue.
Wolf, apparently in your haste to comment, you failed to read both my reasons for DQing Wall-E.
me: “One of the charms of the film is in how well the relationships are conveyed without dialogue”
you: “although there was next to no dialogue, the movie still managed to portray powerful emotions and a meaning [sic] story/message”
What you go on to mention (beep tweaking and lense adjustment) is not writing. It would be story-boarding at best. And it was. Not. Acted. It was animated. Which is exactly what I said above.
“Are you saying no film made before 1927 was a good film?”
I would wager that I am the only person on this site who has seen a film made before 1927. And, again, if you had read my second reason for DQing Wally, you might have been able to extrapolate that silent live-action film would be judged on its own merits (leaving aside the question of what constituted a high-grossing film at that time). Silent animated film would have been DQed as fast as Wall-E, for the reasons stated above.
Wolf: And the doctor shortage is a pet peeve of mine. It has very little to do with there not being enough money.
Oldest thing that I’ve ever watched (in its entirety) has to be Steamboat Willie. I’m assuming everyone has seen some snippet of Charlie Chaplin’s stuff at some point in their lives.
Anyway, go Liam. This was a very interesting topic, and I want to see how it progresses. I’m not going to attempt to take on your challenge, because I think you’ve made a very valid point. And it will take some immense search to find something that fits your criteria.
Can we clarify what qualifies a movie as high grossing? Is there a fixed boundary that it must exceed, or a percentage? Double its budget? What are we looking at here?
sorry for dup-ing ur points. i was tired 7 angry last night. things are getting to me. & i have seen things from the silent era. it was in my history of music in film class, but nevertheless
i might try to argue that wall-es animators have to have ties into acting to animate him emotionally, but at this point, im loosing interest.
i also meant to throw in a mention to r2d2 with the beeping, but its lost now.
well the doctor thing was just to help point out one of the many injustices in the world. and when people (actors) bitch that they arent getting their $20 million a year, it pisses me off. *to those people* go fuck a lemon and hang yourself you whiny good for nothing cunt*
as a side note to that: part of me wants to be socialist/border-line the good kind of communist, but i have a short fuse for really stupid, lazy people, which unfortunately, there seems to be no shortage of in this world.
:(
PS. Im moving on saturday if youre interested, but i think we have enough hands. also i made another musical post that no one hasnoticed, and the song is fucking awesome
Granite:
Thanks. It’s weird. This was something I would never normally post about, but I just got this strange feeling that I should.
As far as ‘high grossing’ is concerned, I’m gonna take a page from obscenity. I know it when I see it. If you think you see it, then I can probably be convinced.
Also, the challenge is obviously skewed towards my personal biases. It’ll be pretty tough to meet my totally subjective criteria. Although… There is one really obvious answer that no one has given me.
Wolf:
I’m sorry that you are having a bad time. You know I only hurt because I love.
I would love to help you move. But Older Brother and Younger Sister are both moving on Saturday as well. I’m spread too thin as it is.
PS, I check your blog every day, dummy. I just don’t always comment.
Im going to make 2 guesses on the obvious choice: Slumdog Millionaire & District 9 :P
I still haven’t seen either of them. D9 is too new for me to take anyone’s word, but Slumdog did take 8 Oscars if I recall correctly. It’s the movie that I can most easily think of that fits the criteria. The last criterion, that it must have ‘good actors’, is the hardest to satisfy simply because of its total subjectivity. Since I haven’t seen Slumdog I can’t be sure, but (again, given its Oscar track record) I would be willing to accept it as a possible solution to the challenge.
But just to flesh out the ‘good actors’ thing, let’s contrast to the original Ghost in the Shell movie. Slumdog beats the ‘good actors’ thing on a technicality: none of the actors are known to western audiences, so I’ll give it a pass. But Ghost in the Shell was rife with voice acting of the worst kind. I don’t know how much it grossed, so it may not be an actual contender for the challenge. But it took a well-written screenplay and ruined all the dialogue with bad acting (as it’s animated, it also makes a good contrast to the points I made about Wall-E above).
*cock joke*
I think to counter the point in the article “good actors” should translate into “actors that make 20 million a movie.” I was trying to argue that these A-list actors that make this much aren’t perceptively better at acting then much lower paid actors. Hence why movies without “A-list actors” are not dominating the box office.
I would argue that WALL E was well written! Childrens stories, although they aren’t up to the depth of adult novels, can still be well written and captivating! Just as a poem or a song can be well written. A movie with little dialogue, that has an excellent basis and ideas around it is well-written in my books.
And, you’re right, WALL E basically has no actors. Which was part of your challenge, seeing as none of these non-existent actors are present.
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels made, like 300% over than its budget, as it was a tiny independent film. I’d say that’s a financial success! But, yeah, I was going for ‘without A-list actors’ more than ‘without good actors’.
At any rate, all three of my films prove that financial success and excellent movies are both obtainable even if you abstain from the “A-List” actors and resort to equally talented, less publicized workers. And I still get high-fives. Rock on!
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