Thursday, February 18, 2010

Do Stars Really Have Star Power?

I was thinking about how one of the unique things about Titanic was that James Cameron was able to make a huge box office success without any huge stars. Granted, Titanic wasn't the end of the road for Kate Winslet or Leonardo DiCaprio, but they were certainly new names on the scene and opened up the door for independent film actors and actresses to have an increased opportunity to have lead roles in large films.

Not only did James Cameron do it again with Avatar, but most of 2009's top films were not packed with traditional star power.

Look at these names: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Laurent, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Chris Pine, and Zachary Quinto.

These are the stars of the top live action films in Hollywood this year.

This does not look good for the traditional stars...the Meg Ryan, John Travolta, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Jamie Foxx, and any other star that graces the cover of People Magazine every week.

Perhaps directors are finding films are more successful when the cast the right person and that film viewers are more interested in film concepts and popular buzz then in seeing a movie poster with two big head of Nicholas Cage and Jennifer Aniston co-staring in a romantic crime drama.

2 comments:

Amy said...

Also if a star becomes too huge it's hard to separate their on screen identity from their real life personality. So it seems that lesser known stars embody their characters more fully.

Loren Eaton said...

... film viewers are more interested in film concepts ...

STORY. IS. KING.