The Film Industry Thread

[lazerusgerbil]

But Aniston's collaberation with Clive Owen worked out much better than Jolie's.

[twodollars]

I think that's why Angelina Jolie is so bankable

She's actually not bankable at all. She has only had 2 successful movies - the first Tomb Raider and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Every other movie she has starred in has either under-performed or flat out bombed.

Truthfully, I am surprised Sandra Bullock didn't top the list for women. Premonition, Lake House and Crash all made money. I think she's the only actress who can say that all of her recent movies turned a profit.

[strawberrylover]

Actually, I should've said that's why Angelina Jolie is still in demand and that she is a bigger movie star than Jennifer Aniston. You're right. Bankable means something else entirely.

What's JA done recently besides those ads for that water product thing? Angelina was in The Good Shepard and A Mighty Heart and got decent reviews for both.

I was actually surprised Reese Witherspoon didn't top the list for women. She's not paid that much yet, right? And most of her movies have been successes ever since Legally Blonde, some of them huge hits too. I think Vanity Fair flopped.

[kayti2212]

strawberrylover said:

And ITA with whoever said actresses don't get good movies in Hollywood. There was that movie with the all-star cast, with Meryl Streep, Claire Danes and Glenn Close earlier this summer. I can't even remember the name right now, but I recall thinking at the time: Man, this is the kind of chick flick that even chicks don't rush to theaters to see.

Evening. I saw this the other week and all the actresses across the board did a great job. It's a shame barely anyone saw it.

[huntergrayson]

Like Pauline Kael said about her, she could play both the Vivian Leigh and the Marlon Brando roles in Streetcar Named Desire.

Close. Pauline said she could play both the Brando and Maria Schneider roles in Last Tango.

[strawberrylover]

Ah, thanks for that. It's been a while since I read what she said -- obviously.

I think she can play both the roles in Streetcar. She plays crazy pretty well.

[satellite]

evilminion said:

bstewart said:

Is it possible for a movie studio to actively hate a film? I mean, Idiocracy didn't get that awful reviews, yet it appeared for all of 14 minutes at a handful of theatres -- and no promotion -- and the DVD is released with a ridiculous $29.99 (CAN) list price. They want that film to fail, don't they?

Maybe it was a bit too close to reality. That movie was the most accurate vision of how I think the future will be. Mad Max has nothing on Idiocracy (in regards to predicting the future, that is)

And what's up with Skinwalkers? Are they trying to kill this movie? It had a decent amount of TV commercials over the past few months, and my inner 13 year old boy was anticipating hotties, werewolves, leather, and motorcycles this past weekend. But then-nothing. They don't even have the showtimes on IMDB, and I come to find out that it's playing in three theaters in like a 30 mile radius- none of which is near me. IMDB says it opened in 737 theaters and made $565,000- a definite bomb, but there's always going to be audience for that kind of stuff.

A friend of mine mentioned the film Audition the other day, and I'm thinking of all this current"torture porn" as the overblown American response trying to outdo the Asia Extreme films- Ichi the Killer, Oldboy, etc. Discuss...

[strawberrylover]

I wondered about studio mishandling with The Painted Veil. It seemed like such a perfect Oscar contender -- if not for the acting, then for the cinematography at the very least! And yet it got shafted by marketing BIG TIME.

I wonder if that's the studio's incompetence or if they really had no faith in the movie.

[mrpancake]

It seemed like the actively hated Perfume, too. Which I thought was odd because the book was such a huge it, the movie appeared to have a pretty big budget and I was under the impression that the movie did pretty well financially in Europe (since the book was German).

But here - the movie didn't make a splash. I don't think I heard about it once. It was in theaters for a couple weeks and then flushed away, which was a shame because the movie was great. It was weird, but so was the book and it remained incredibly faithful to the book and I thought did it as much justice as a book like that could get through film. I'm continually baffled by the studio's decision to (not) promote the movie the way they did - I think it could have been at least moderately successful and had the chance at Oscar nominations, even if only technical.

[huntergrayson]

I caught Painted Veil on DVD and was seriously wowed. I wonder if the Yuri group was split between promoting Norton in this or The Illusionist.

I think the studio system is just completely inept on marketing anything not a summer blockbuster. The concept of "word of mouth" is almost dead thanks to the obsession with opening weekend grosses.

This sorta ties in -- I'm almost being actively turned off by all the Superbad promotion. It was supposed to be a "sleeper" hit. But then Knocked Up became the next big thing and...

MySpace videos and interviews out the wazoo. The cast "hosting" showings of the American Pie films on TBS. A two-part roundtable in EW. Ads seemingly every 15 minutes. Oh and it's being released in 2800 theaters. The budget is obviously very low - but I swear it seems like they're spending 50+ million on marketing, easy.

ETA: TPV was also distributed by Warner Independentt, which doesn't have the best track record of knowing how to promote their stuff for awards. Seriously, Scanner Darkly snubbed for Best Animated Feature?