Jennifer Aniston is omnipresent in the culture and she just had a bona fide moviestar launch of The Break-Up--which grossed $38M despite bad reviews and misleading marketing. Give her credit: She opened this picture basically by herself.
But how surprised would you be to learn that this is only the fourth time she's opened a movie over $10M:
The Break-Up-$38M
Derailed-$12M
Along Came Polly-$27M
Bruce Almighty-$68M
Bruce Almighty is a Jim Carey vehicle and Along Came Polly was a Ben Stiller vehicle designed as a pseudo-sequel to Something About Mary. What the success of The Break-Up shows is that, if an actor is forced on audiences enough times, eventually they'll get a hit.
Ben Affleck is another great example of this. After the slow-burn success of Good Will Hunting, Affleck was allowed to ride shotgun alongside Bruce Willis and Michael Bay in Armageddon, after which Hollywood assumed that he was a new leading man. He then bombed five consecutive movies, the biggest opening gross of which was $13.5M for Forces of Nature. He helped Pearl Harbor underperform, bombed again with Changing Lanes, and finally opened The Sum of All Fears to a respectable $31M.
You see similar patterns with Josh Hartnett (who hasn't actually gotten his hit yet) and the former Mr. Jennifer Anniston, Brad Pitt, who after being pulled along by Tom Cruise's coattails in Interview with the Vampire, ran off a string of 8 leading roles without opening a movie above $15M.
Most actors don't get all of these extra chances. But the lesson to studio executives is clear: No matter how many failures a "star" has, if you keep giving them work, eventually they'll have a breakout hit.
1 hour ago
4 comments:
Doesn't the quality of the film have anything to do with whether it will be a hit.
I worked at a movie theater throughout high school and college. After most 8 years of doing every job in there, I gleened a few lessonns and learned one true fact of life: People will turn out in herds to see shitty movies. Bank on it. It's like Vegas to the travel business. It doesn't matter what's going on, people go. That is, some people just go see movies because that's what they do. They see it all. Doesn't have to be a big blockbuster, or a film-version of their favorite comic book. These people aren't film buffs. They go see Weekend at Bernie's 2. These are people that will pay $6.25 (then) to see Congo or Species 2. I love a good movie. That's why I see maybe 4 a year, if that. Usually on DVD.
Oddly enough, the busiest day at a movie theater is Thanksgiving, followed closely by Christmas. A sad commentary on the American family I'd say: Spending time together, but going to sit in the dark and not look at or talk to one another for a couple of hours. But I'd add that it adds weight to the above: people go because they think that's what they're supposed to do, above and beyond hanging out around a tree and getting loopy on Nog.
BTW, Last my friend, you are on to something with in this Hollywood-will-keep-marketing-movies-for-personalities-until-they-get-a-hit-business. This is true.
Travolta was in how many talking baby movies? If I had a dollar for all the old ladies who came and bitched me out for all the cursing at the beginning of Pulp Fiction, then I could've stuffed my ears with them, and stayed to collect more dollars. I.e., a lot of old ladies mistakenly saw that movie.
Aren't you forgetting something? A guy named Vince Vaughn was in this thing. I'd bet my left nut that more than half the audience flocked due to his comic appeal (remember Old School? Dodgeball?? Wedding Crashers???), not the former Mrs. Pitt.
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