the star market
The Star Market: What Is the Ultrafamous Gossip-Mag Staple Angelina Jolie’s Valuation in Hollywood?
Angelina Jolie may be the most famous actress in the world, but
the average person thinks of her more as “famous” than “actress.” After
all, while many people go to see her action movies (Her last movie, Wanted, grossed $341 million worldwide in 2008, and her new spy flick, Salt, opens next Friday), even more people are familiar with, say, her children’s idiosyncrasies: Shiloh likes to wear boy clothes!
And though she’s an Oscar winner, her “serious” films don’t ensure a
big crowd. So, here’s the question: Does Jolie’s real-life reputation as
a globe-trotting, husband-stealing, world-saving, children-collecting,
magazine-newsstand-sales-boosting, all-purpose celebrity help or hurt
her career? Or are the two things inseparable? The Star Market
investigates.
STOCK HISTORY: Never before has an actress
turned her public image around so dramatically through sheer force of
will. When she kicked off her career in the mid-nineties, she
immediately stood out among the hordes of other young attractive
actresses thanks to her industry pedigree (dad Jon Voight) and her
willingness to court controversy (remember all the super-explicit
lesbian sex scenes in Gia?). She quickly racked up an Oscar for Girl, Interrupted and became a top-of-the-line international star, taking that opportunity to get really fucking weird:
borderline-incestuous red-carpet canoodling, wearing a vial of Billy
Bob Thornton’s blood, lots of talk of knives … do we even need an
“etc.”? Then, counterintuitively, she made the ultimate bad-girl move —
abducting Brad Pitt from Jennifer Aniston, launching Mr. & Mrs. Smith
at the box office, and the deathless tradition of the Aniston versus
Jolie magazine cover — and used it to flip her image, turning herself
into a saintly U.N. missionary and mom to an adorable crew of
cosmopolitan moppets. Though her world travels have kept her away from
the big screen for two years, she has never vanished from the public
eye.
PAST EARNINGS:
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001): $7 million
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003): $12 million
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005): $10 million
Wanted (2008): $15 to 20 million (with cut of profits)
Salt (2010): $17 to 20 million, with 20 percent of the gross
PEERS: As we’ve noted before,
Jolie is one of only five actresses — along with Julia Roberts, Sandra
Bullock, Reese Witherspoon, and Katherine Heigl — who can get a movie
green-lit just by signing on. But Jolie stands alone when it comes to
single-handedly opening a big-budget action blockbuster. Says one top
producer, “If you're talking about a female action protagonist, she's
the only one who matters." However, if Jolie says no to a project, a
studio's Plan B's are Milla Jovovich and Kate Beckinsale, though Zoe
Saldana is showing signs of being a strong contender.
MARKET VALUE: Jolie makes such a bankable action heroine because of her intensity. You can’t imagine her in a romantic comedy (the 2002 bomb Life or Something Like It
seemed to have cured her of the desire to even try another one); in a
rom-com, the female character, no matter how type A, ultimately has to
have a gooey epiphany where she gives in to the male, and no one would
buy Jolie as giving into anyone. She smolders, she smirks, she takes
charge, and she makes men shudder. Her sly, dangerously sexy appeal
comes through without words; that’s probably why she’s such a draw
internationally. Wanted was a decent hit in the States,
grossing $134.5 million, but it truly scored overseas, where it brought
in another $207 million.
But Jolie isn’t like Will Smith, dependably churning out the blockbusters: Since 2001, there’s just been the two Tomb Raiders, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Wanted, and Salt.
Her schedule is pared down to spend time with her family, and she has
also divvied up her limited shooting time to include more serious films
like Changeling and A Mighty Heart (for which she
drops her salary quote). With these, critics and film-festival audiences
applaud her acting skills, but audiences have rarely followed: 2007’s A Mighty Heart,
for all of its “she’s an Oscar lock!” preopening buzz, only grossed
$9.2 million domestically. However, when she opens in a movie, no matter
how small, Jolie is such a commodity that the studio is basically
guaranteed major airtime and magazine covers. There’s a good case to
make that Heart wouldn’t have even made $9.2 million without
that publicity (even if the stories are about Shiloh’s wardrobe
choices), but its still-low gross does prove that audiences have a very
specific idea of what they want to see her doing, and it doesn’t involve
worrying. She seems to realize that and is steering her career
accordingly (and she is nearly solely in charge of steering her career —
she has no manager or publicist): Next up, the thriller The Tourist, with Johnny Depp.
WHAT HOLLYWOOD THINKS: "She's a real woman, almost from the golden age of Hollywood," says one top producer. "It's like the difference between Tobey Maguire and Daniel Craig; one's a boy, the other's a man. She's a woman; most of the other actresses who do action movies these days are girls." But, he adds, her domination only extends to action movies: “She’s only been really successful when you put a gun in her hand. It’s how the audience wants to see her.” One agent suspects that she’s come to the same realization: “She seems to be maximizing her earnings, and not necessarily doing the greatest movies in the world. But she’s found what people like to see her in.” After all, he adds, one can only be so precious with the bills her family racks up. "While I’m sure their income is above their expenses, they have a huge lifestyle. A place in L.A.; a big house in Santa Barbara. [Pitt] has a big apartment in Berlin. All these places have [staff] in them. Plus, private jets to take six kids plus nannies for each? When the family travels, it’s not just one jet anymore." A top publicist wouldn't want to work with her because she micromanages her own image so carefully. "She decides everything," says the flack. "What photographers she’ll work with. The events she’ll do. You name it, she knows best." Then again, that seems to be working so far. "She sells so many weekly magazines by just walking across the street with a child in her arms."
WHAT HOLLYWOOD THINKS: "She's a real woman, almost from the golden age of Hollywood," says one top producer. "It's like the difference between Tobey Maguire and Daniel Craig; one's a boy, the other's a man. She's a woman; most of the other actresses who do action movies these days are girls." But, he adds, her domination only extends to action movies: “She’s only been really successful when you put a gun in her hand. It’s how the audience wants to see her.” One agent suspects that she’s come to the same realization: “She seems to be maximizing her earnings, and not necessarily doing the greatest movies in the world. But she’s found what people like to see her in.” After all, he adds, one can only be so precious with the bills her family racks up. "While I’m sure their income is above their expenses, they have a huge lifestyle. A place in L.A.; a big house in Santa Barbara. [Pitt] has a big apartment in Berlin. All these places have [staff] in them. Plus, private jets to take six kids plus nannies for each? When the family travels, it’s not just one jet anymore." A top publicist wouldn't want to work with her because she micromanages her own image so carefully. "She decides everything," says the flack. "What photographers she’ll work with. The events she’ll do. You name it, she knows best." Then again, that seems to be working so far. "She sells so many weekly magazines by just walking across the street with a child in her arms."
THE ANALYSIS: Jolie has similar parallels to
George Clooney: Both are wildly famous and considered Hollywood royalty,
and yet their outsized media attention is not always proportional to
their box office draw. Both have their reasons; Clooney sticks to more
serious, arty, and eclectic fare, while Jolie just works a lot less
frequently. In fact, it might actually damage her mystique to work more
often. She seems more valuable as a distant glamorous Halley's Comet of a
figure whom we catch glimpses of as she zips by overhead, on to a new
exotic country with her gorgeous family, only to occasionally alight at
our local theater and on red carpets with her husband. She is always
just out of our reach — which is what's at the center of her most
successful onscreen persona.
At this point, she has the luxury of sticking with what works, but demanding intriguing directors: The Tourist is directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who made the Oscar-winning The Lives of Others; Salt is directed by Phillip Noyce, a journeyman action director who did Patriot Games, The Saint, and Jolie's The Bone Collector, but as of late he has been turning to more intriguing, smaller fare, like The Quiet American and Catch a Fire.
Jolie has been circling a potential franchise based on Patricia
Cornwell's best-selling Kay Scarpetta airport paperback mysteries —
again, tough and smart — and is developing a period thriller called Serena
with Darren Aronofsky. Though her domestic grosses may not reach the
heights of Will Smith and, on the comedy side, Will Ferrell and Adam
Sandler, her international appeal continues to make her a safe bet in
her wheelhouse. Seeing as she’s already got an Oscar — dampening the
temptation to go chasing the Academy with a potentially embarrassingly
weepy Nazi project — there’s no reason why she can’t continue what she's
doing. She recently spoke up to shoot down misinterpretations of a Vanity Fair quote that implied she was looking forward to retiring,
and yet she shows little sign of upping her output. Her commitment to
her family and international causes may keep her away from work for long
stretches, but it will always keep her in the papers, which serves her
well when she does occasionally finish a movie.
BOTTOM LINE: If she sticks to her strengths
(which is strength), she'll be fine: It never hurt Sigourney Weaver. And
though audiences don't embrace Jolie's attempts at versatility as they
did Weaver's, that may change. Considering the image turnaround she's
already pulled off, there's no reason that, as she gets older and her
looks soften, she can't reinvent herself as a dramatic mom. Hell, with
her otherworldly powers of PR, she might even be able to reinvent
herself as a wisecracking gay robot.
BUY/SELL/HOLD: Buy!
the star market
The Star Market: After Years of Retreating Back to Indies, Can Ryan Gosling Be a Major Movie Star?
In 2004, Ryan Gosling had the opportunity to be a major
mainstream movie star after he said the immortal words "If you're a
bird, I'm a bird" in The Notebook. And yet, instead of cashing
in and scooping up every single wet-shirted romance he could schedule,
he retreated to a series of unglamorous parts in the indie world: Half Nelson, which earned him an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a inner-city teacher addicted to crack; Lars and the Real Girl, which had him fall in love with a sex doll; and 2010’s Blue Valentine,
a much-discussed but little-seen anti-love-story. But now, at 30, he
seems to be ready to give wide-release films another shot: This summer
he stole Crazy Stupid Love from Steve Carell, and today he tries his hand at being an action star (albeit a mysterious, arty one) in Drive, which he describes as “Pretty in Pink
with a head smashing.” Is his stardom an inevitability, or is his
quirky intensity destined for the insular indie world? Time to ask the
Star Market question: If Ryan Gosling were a stock, would you buy, sell,
or hold?
Stock History: After dancing behind Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake on Disney's Mickey Mouse Club, Gosling did a string of bit TV parts and a teen drama series (his native Canada’s Breaker High) before garnering "Where did this guy come from?" kudos for the 2001 Sundance award-winning neo-Nazi drama The Believer. Two years later, the 2004 weeper The Notebook
grossed $81 million (and probably far more on DVD). His subsequent
indies were the polar opposite, and, critical raves aside, seem like
their plots were designed by a computer programmed to make anti-hits:
the NC-17, profoundly unhappy breakup movie Blue Valentine didn't break $10 million; Lars nearly cracked $6 million*, which is actually impressive for a movie about a sex doll that was not pornography; and the crack-addicted-teacher tale Half Nelson sputtered out at $2.7 million.
Peers: Hollywood casting directors group with
him Chris Pine (31), Michael Fassbender (34), and younger up-and-comers
Chris Hemsworth (28), Ben Walker (28), and Armie Hammer (25).
Market Value: This summer's Crazy, Stupid, Love
topped out at $80 million (early predictions and reviews pegged it for
more), but even though it was billed as a Steve Carell movie, Gosling,
with his un-airbrushed abs, became the big story. (The shirt-free
marketing seemed to be directed at frustrated Notebook fans: Hey, ladies, he's back and topless!) He became omnipresent, whether doing press for Love or showing up at Cannes with Drive. And yet, he seems to still be dodging the test of whether he himself is a draw: In this winter's October release, The Ides of March,
even though he is the main character, it will be looked at as a
referendum on director/supporting actor George Clooney. (Plus, political
films are never expected to be huge hits.) And Drive comes with an asterisk: It's being distributed by fledgling company FilmDistrict (Soul Surfer, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Insidious),
and Hollywood insiders are already willing to place any underperforming
blame on it. Said one manager we spoke to: “I think the jury’s still
out on FilmDistrict, and that’s a bit of a problem for him. Everything
has been sorta lukewarmish so far.” Echoed an agent: “The question is,
can FilmDistrict open a movie?” In order to gauge his box-office worth,
eyes are already looking toward 2013's The Gangster Squad from
Warner Bros., in which he co-stars with Sean Penn, Josh Brolin. and Nick
Nolte; as the only non-craggy face (other than Emma Stone), the
pressure is all on him. (Before that, he'll retreat back to the indie
world with next year's The Place Beyond the Pines, directed by Blue Valentine's Derek Cianfrance.)
What Hollywood Thinks: “I think he’s the greatest. I’ve seen Drive, and he’s a bona fide movie star. Then I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love
after it, and I’m just, I’m in love with him” says one publicist. "He’s
very astute at picking roles, and he has a lot of range," explains an
agent. "Very good [chops] in Lars and The Real Girl. Then, he’s super-cool, quiet, stoic in Drive. And he’s funny. Very few actors can do all that, and have a female fan base.”
One manager sees him as "a young Tom Hanks, except he’s doing the
opposite. Hanks was a comedic actor who proved he could be a great
dramatic actor. He’s going the other way around.” The agent, meanwhile,
compares him to Johnny Depp: "The slow build. There’s a real résumé
there, instead of the quick grab at stardom." He adds: "Whoever said
Gosling is ‘the reluctant movie star’ had it right: He took a supporting
role in Crazy, Stupid, Love ... But then does a movie like Blue Valentine or Drive. He just does what he wants to do.”
Though the manager did express his concerns about Drive’s distribution, he also noted "that’s on them, not Gosling. The films he has ahead — Derek’s picture [Pines] and Gangster Squad? It won’t matter if [Drive]
doesn’t do what it should.” Adds the agent: “The Rx is to keep doing
the same thing." And the publicist sees no problem with his habit of
doing smaller roles: “I think that’s actually kind of cool. I don’t want
to see everybody all the time. It’s what makes him more interesting
than most actors. He’s not always around.” The publicist continued, “His
mystery is what's going to make him succeed, as well. I think he
understands the business of being a movie star: You get better work and
access to really great material."
The Analysis: Ryan Gosling is an immensely talented actor; this is inarguable. His post-Notebook
career choices, though unorthodox, allowed him to show off a remarkable
depth, and the low-profile, high-integrity strategy helped him escape
the saccharine Nicholas Sparks pigeonhole. (But that movie still helps
him: Some women, including those who videotape random New York City street fights, will never forget him.) In terms of likability, Gosling’s off-screen persona has taken on a life of its own: There’s the street fight video, which Gosling claims embarrassed him; the Brando accent; and his very own set of fan blogs, with a personalized catchphrase (“Hey Girl”).
But while his acting brings to mind a young Sean Penn, he has what Penn
never had: a sense of humor about himself. He's more like Clooney in
the way that he doesn't reveal a lot about himself, but he's so
self-effacing, acknowledging and joking about his image (and clearly enjoying all the red carpets) that he's earned the devotion of female fans and the respect of male viewers; Drive, and its horrifically gory action scenes, will surely shore up support with the latter.
As our experts point out, Gosling won’t bear the blame if the
movie falls short at the box office; he gets all of the leading man
credibility with little of the responsibility. It’s a savvy mode of
reentry for a guy who clearly wants to keep the focus on his acting, and
if he can continue to toe the line between indie giant and commercial
charmer, Gosling could carve out a career not unlike that of Matt Damon
or Clooney. At some point, he'll have to prove his ability to open a big
movie, but right now he has the room to simply exist as a star. And
however you define star quality, Gosling’s got it.
Bottom Line: “You look at all these young actors
who wanna be famous and want to be movie stars versus those who want to
do great work to achieve movie stardom," says the publicist. "They
won’t, but he’ll achieve it, because he’s going about it the right way.”
Rating: Strong Buy.
*This post has been corrected to show the domestic gross for Lars and the Real Girl instead of the worldwide gross.
the star market
The Star Market: Does Michael Fassbender Have the X Factor to Become a Superstar?
Ask your mom who Michael Fassbender is and she might not be able
to identify the 34-year-old up-and-comer by name, even if she happened
to check out his last movie, Jane Eyre. Mention Fassbender to
anyone working in Hollywood, though, and they'll all know exactly who he
is, because they've either tried to get him in their next movie or
their interns can't stop salivating over the man. Few actors come more
buzzed about in town than Fassbender, even though his most high-profile
role ever — a young Magneto in the prequel X-Men: First Class —
only hits theaters today. Is this a case of industry hype getting too
far ahead of itself, or is Fassbender on his way to the A-list? To find
out, we asked industry insiders our simple question: If Michael
Fassbender were a stock, would you buy, sell, or hold?
Stock History: Born in Germany but mostly raised
in Ireland, Fassbender has a European background and facility with
accents that is perhaps put to its best use yet in X-Men, where
he speaks four languages. When he went into acting in his twenties,
Fassbender booked mostly television roles (including a supporting part
in Band of Brothers and a role on the British series Hex),
though occasionally, he was thisclose to hitting the big time: Before
he had any onscreen credits whatsoever, he managed to impress Michael
Bay in auditions and nearly won Ben Affleck's part in Pearl Harbor.
Still, it wasn't until he hit his thirties that Fassbender truly
came into his marketable masculinity and serious-actor bona fides. In
2008, he whittled his body down to nothing to play IRA prisoner Bobby
Sands in Hunger, and followed it with two very different roles the next year: a sexy interloper in Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, and Archie Hicox in Inglourious Basterds,
who stars in his own little mini-movie halfway through the film. And
with that, Fassbender shot up to the top of every casting director's
wish list. He still had to get a couple of underperforming action movies
out of his system, including Centurion and the Josh Brolin bomb Jonah Hex, but after booking X-Men, Fassbender picked up several auteur projects, including David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, and Ridley Scott's currently shooting Alien semi-prequel Prometheus.
Peers: His closest peers are Ryan Gosling (30),
Tom Hardy (33), and Joel Edgerton (36). On the more established, older
end, he could draw parts from Christian Bale (37), and on the younger
end, Armie Hammer boasts similar square-jawed appeal (24).
Market Value: Evolving. Fassbender was lucky enough to appear in two blockbusters, 300 and Basterds, and the latter even gave him a centerpiece supporting role. Jane Eyre,
though, was Fassbender's first starring gig to coincide with his
current wave of hype, and it did quite well in limited release, grossing
over $10 million. Still, nothing has truly been sold on his name yet.
What Hollywood Thinks: "The guy is completely on
fire," raves one top agent. "He's on every list, and he's only going to
get hotter since he's the male lead of Prometheus. He was fantastic in Hunger
and unbelievable in Andrea Arnold's movie — he's a big reason it won
the Jury Prize at Cannes and the BAFTA for Best Picture — but no one saw
those movies here. He was in Jonah Hex, which was a catastrophe, but no one blames him for Brolin kicking off the original directors."
Says another talent agent, "He makes commercial choices but he
has the pedigree of an 'actor's actor.' He's the heir apparent to Daniel
Day-Lewis. I couldn't be prouder to be the same [species] as that guy,
let alone work in the same profession. He's represented by someone I
consider a real rival [CAA's Michael Cooper, agent to stars like Charlie
Hunnam, Henry Cavill and Josh Brolin], but I am thrilled for him and
root for him."
One high-powered publicist is just as enamored. "I would
literally pay money to represent him," she says. "When someone has that
much talent, you can pick and choose. The day he stops being a good
actor, and taking cool, interesting roles, that will change, of course,
but for now, he is so brilliant."
The Analysis: Suffice it to say, then,
Fassbender has a lot of industry support. The question is whether the
public at large will swoon for him, too, but we think the odds are in
his favor. Though many in town hope Fassbender will fill Day-Lewis's
cobbled shoes as a dramatic actor in challenging movies (he just
reunited with his Hunger director Steve McQueen for the sex drama Shame, for example), he's perfectly happy to do giant blockbusters, too: X-Men is his first comic-book movie, but it's not for lack of trying, since he was also one of the finalists for the title role in Green Lantern. (And Fassbender may have ended up with the better role in the better movie, in this case.)
It's possible that Fassbender's new representatives have gotten a little overeager — after all, his deal for Prometheus
was almost scuttled when they demanded a giant payday for him, despite
the fact that Fassbender still isn't a big name. But it's more likely
that Ridley Scott's movie lucked out by booking him before he blows up.
By this time next year, he'll have appeared in a slew of potentially
terrific movies with nary a paycheck role among them. And perhaps owing
to Fassbender's diverse background, his castability is through the roof,
meaning he could play almost anything Hollywood throws at him: a quiet
drama, an action movie lead ... hell, even a rom-com.
"Could he screw it up?" asks the publicist. "Sure, if he pulls a
Chris Brown, beats up a girl. Or if he becomes a huge diva." But she
thinks that Fassbender has the goods to survive imminent fame.
"This is a case of talent outweighing 'the Machine,'" she says.
"There are people like Daniel Day-Lewis who are so ridiculously
talented, they can choose to do what they want next. Press is about two
things, really: getting the next, best job, and delivering to the studio
[on your current one]. But at the end of the day, it's only about what
your next project is, about how to set about accomplishing the next best
thing. I've had intellectual clients who want to be seen as 'sexy' so
they can get their next part [in a romance] so we'll put them in a sexy
photo shoot to make that happen. But I am basically saying that this guy
doesn't need to hire me, even though like I said, I would pay to have
him as a client. I mean, Hunger? He depleted himself of
everything for that role. So I am going to say it. He falls into the
category of, 'I am in awe of you because you're such a great actor.'"
The Bottom Line: Whatever Fassbender is doing, it's working. Your moms are about to come around.
Buy/Sell/Hold: Very strong buy.
the star market
The Star Market: Is Jeremy Renner a Leading Man?
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol opens today, and
while it's Tom Cruise's movie, it ushers in a new era: Jeremy Renner,
action star. Well, maybe. Renner is already working on The Bourne Legacy and The Avengers, but he has yet to prove himself as a bankable leading man. He landed the Bourne franchise by being the compromise choice for all parties, and his Hawkeye's a supporting player in The Avengers,
not the star. But Hollywood's light is on leading men right now,
especially ones who, like two-time Oscar-nominee Renner, can actually
act. Will Renner and his slightly menacing manner prove to be a
box-office draw? Can he do popcorn as well as he does prestige? If
Jeremy Renner were a stock, would you buy, sell, or hold?
Stock History: Renner, 40, had a long résumé, indie cred (Dahmer), and some solid supporting work (28 Weeks Later, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), but he didn't break out until 2009's The Hurt Locker.
That film earned Renner great reviews and his first Oscar nomination,
and he immediately followed that up with an equally intense performance
in 2010's The Town, which earned him his second.
Peers: Renner is by far the oldest of his equals, who
include Chris Pine (31), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (30), James Franco (33),
Bradley Cooper (36), Ryan Gosling (31), and Tom Hardy (34) – and like
the lot of them, "none have proven themselves as box-office draws," says
one agent, "They're not consistent like Tom Cruise and Will Smith were
when they were younger."
Market Value: Renner's sample size is too small to say. The Hurt Locker grossed $17 million domestically — but it was also a critical smash, and it won an award or two. The Town had more than twice The Hurt Locker's
budget and pulled in a respectable $92 million domestically — but it
would be hard to trace that film's financial success to Renner in any
meaningful capacity. Renner's value is still all hypothetical, but it's
based on his performance in both of these films. In Hurt Locker and The Town
Renner demonstrated he had a real, swaggering, gritty machismo. Unlike
some of his peers, he seems like a plausible action hero. But his career
crucibles are all ahead of him with M:I: Ghost Protocol opening today, followed by a trio of action movies: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, The Avengers, and The Bourne Legacy.
What Hollywood Thinks: "He's a rugged leading guy, which
are in exceedingly short supply these days," says one agent. "Right now,
he's at the top of the list – though that's partly because he's
operating in a world with little competition. Ask yourself: 'How many
rugged, leading guys are there?'"
One top producer agrees, adding, "He is a good actor and it seems
like he wants to do action movies, and there are not a lot of guys who
can do that. As a result, there's been a real drought in that area.
Think of the movies people our age grew up on: The Die Hard and Predator action-y stuff. They hardly ever get made today."
As a result, our agent says, "He gets offered almost anything, and he's really in the mix on everything. He turned down [Crazy Heart director] Scott Cooper's Out of the Furnace at Relativity Media. I know they want him for J. Blakeson's next movie at MRC [a Media Rights Capital detective noir, Bad Blood and Trouble, set in Miami]."
It's not clear that Renner can become, with his pudgy-face and
ordinary-guy demeanor, a traditional leading man for big-budget studio
pictures. Said one current head of marketing at a major studio, "He's a
very good actor that brings quality to anything he does, but I don't
think he is a box-office draw yet, except maybe to true cinephiles." If
Renner is going to step into a leading-man position, insiders think it's
going to be through Bourne — though even that is far from a sure thing. Explains one manager, "People trust that Bourne Legacy
will work and he will be [the next] Matt Damon, but I still think there
is a bit of 'wait-and-see.' Right now, he can definitely get a movie
going in the U.S. at a price – $40 million and under, for sure – with
the right vehicle. I think he's the best bad guy ever, but ... well,
let's see if he's as likable as [Damon was playing] Jason Bourne."
"Is he a leading man? I am not sure what that means anymore in a world where Tom Cruise is invisible in the [new] Mission: Impossible campaign and Matt Damon has been supplanted by a zebra with a bow on its back [in posters for We Bought a Zoo],"
says one former head of marketing at a major studio turned consultant.
"I often feel that Will Smith may be the last leading man on earth. So,
Jeremy Renner? I have no idea ... I literally get all of those young
guys confused ... I am not sure I would recognize Michael Fassbender if
he walked up to me."
The Analysis: The race to be the next Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio is wide open: Renner's on the older side of breaking out, but there aren't many young actors hot on his heels,
and he's already got plenty of cachet, if not star power. If anyone can
slide into the spotlight, it would seem to be Renner. Certainly, with
all the action movies he has lined up, he's going to take his shot— and
if any of them hit, especially Bourne or Hansel and Gretel, both of which he's really toplining, Renner should be in great shape.
But even if Renner doesn't appear in a smash, he should be all
right: Not only is the general action-hero void working in his favor, so
is the fact that many of the big tentpole films of today (like The Avengers)
are sold on the franchise, not on the star. He's a good actor who seems
interested in doing mainstream work: Even if he turns out not to be a
guy who can command a huge audience, he can still be the guy who
collects a hefty paycheck. And, as that manager noted, he does make for a
great bad guy. Given his age and his chops, in the worst case, he
should be able to carve out steady gigs stealing scenes as a villain.
Rating: Buy – Renner isn't proven, but that's why he's
still affordable; and at the rate he's going, he will likely never again
be as cheap as the incredibly scant $65,000 he made for The Hurt Locker.
Charlize Theron.
Charlize Theron.
the star market
The Star Market: Is Charlize Theron Mounting a Cruel Comeback?
She's widely thought of as one of the most beautiful actresses in
Hollywood, but Charlize Theron is about to get ugly. In Jason Reitman's
new Young Adult, Theron gleefully inhabits a spiky blonde bitch, while next year, she plays a sorta-baddie in Ridley Scott's Prometheus and then a full-on Evil Queen in Snow White and the Huntsman, where her take on the character is so compelling that after the recent trailer was released for Huntsman,
most web commenters turned their backs on poor Snow White to take up
membership on Team Queen. Theron has always been good at going bad (as
her Oscar for Monster proves), but are these films enough to
pull her out of a notable recent slump? To find out, we asked industry
insiders one simple question: If Charlize Theron were a stock, would you
buy, sell, or hold?
Stock History: Born in South Africa, Theron emigrated to
New York as a teenage model, then headed to Los Angeles with the
intention of working in movies. It didn't take too long: Her striking
second role was as the blonde femme fatale who wasn't afraid to tussle
while topless in 2 Days in the Valley, which she followed up with a supporting part in That Thing You Do!, the directorial debut of Tom Hanks. Theron continued to work steadily, booking parts in The Devil's Advocate, Woody Allen's Celebrity, and The Astronaut's Wife, while Best Picture nominee The Cider House Rules helped to establish her as something more than just a bombshell.
It was in 2003 that Theron had the best year of her career, with the one-two punch of box-office success with The Italian Job and critical acclaim (and an Academy Award) for Monster.
Since then, like many Best Actress winners, Theron has fallen into a
fallow period of middling star vehicles and negligible indies, with the
significant exception of 2008's Hancock. Expect that to change soon, though, because Theron has an impressive lineup on the way: Beyond Young Adult, she'll be seen in Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman, and George Miller's Mad Max reboot.
Peers: Reps interviewed by Vulture have a hard time naming Theron’s peers, largely because her range is so wide. She’s in the same league as well-regarded dramatic actresses like Rachel Weisz (41) and Kate Winslet (36), but Weisz doesn’t do comedy, and Winslet, while beautiful, doesn’t have the same sex symbol heat as Theron. Gwyneth Paltrow (39) and Angelina Jolie (36) are frequently up for the same dramatic parts, but aside from Paltrow's stint on Glee, neither works very much in comedy, either. Meanwhile, traditional comediennes like Jennifer Aniston (42) and Drew Barrymore (36) compete with Theron for the funny stuff, but they lack the gravitas Theron has when it comes to more serious parts. Only a handful are in the running for nearly every part Theron is: Amy Adams (37), Reese Witherspoon (35), and Anne Hathaway (29) all compete for both comedies and dramas, but all three lack the physicality that Jolie has showcased her entire career and that Theron displays so easily in an action movie like Snow White and the Huntsman.
Market Value: Despite her inarguable fame, Theron has only been in two movies that have made over $100 million, and she was the love interest in both: The $106 million grosser The Italian Job and the monster hit Hancock, which made $227 million. Not that she capitalized on the latter, since she hasn't appeared in a single wide-release movie since Hancock came out in 2008, and her films since then — Battle in Seattle, The Burning Plain, and The Road — all stiffed. If you take a look at the rest of Theron's filmography, most of her movies fall into a box-office spectrum between $20 and $60 million dollars. Among them, The Cider House Rules, Monster, and The Devil's Advocate all performed pretty well, but several of the movies really built around Theron's star wattage, like Aeon Flux and Sweet November, couldn't even crack $30 million.
What Hollywood Thinks: And yet, despite that somewhat worrisome track record, there's suddenly a buzz around Theron like there hasn't been in a long time. “It’s a nice little renaissance,” says one agent, “After the Oscar, there was a little bit of a funk. Aeon Flux didn’t work. In the Valley of Elah didn’t work. For a while, she didn’t even have an agent — just her former United Talent Agency manager, J.J. Harris. But for all his bluster and bullshit, she’s been having a very strong go with Ari Emanuel.”
Peers: Reps interviewed by Vulture have a hard time naming Theron’s peers, largely because her range is so wide. She’s in the same league as well-regarded dramatic actresses like Rachel Weisz (41) and Kate Winslet (36), but Weisz doesn’t do comedy, and Winslet, while beautiful, doesn’t have the same sex symbol heat as Theron. Gwyneth Paltrow (39) and Angelina Jolie (36) are frequently up for the same dramatic parts, but aside from Paltrow's stint on Glee, neither works very much in comedy, either. Meanwhile, traditional comediennes like Jennifer Aniston (42) and Drew Barrymore (36) compete with Theron for the funny stuff, but they lack the gravitas Theron has when it comes to more serious parts. Only a handful are in the running for nearly every part Theron is: Amy Adams (37), Reese Witherspoon (35), and Anne Hathaway (29) all compete for both comedies and dramas, but all three lack the physicality that Jolie has showcased her entire career and that Theron displays so easily in an action movie like Snow White and the Huntsman.
Market Value: Despite her inarguable fame, Theron has only been in two movies that have made over $100 million, and she was the love interest in both: The $106 million grosser The Italian Job and the monster hit Hancock, which made $227 million. Not that she capitalized on the latter, since she hasn't appeared in a single wide-release movie since Hancock came out in 2008, and her films since then — Battle in Seattle, The Burning Plain, and The Road — all stiffed. If you take a look at the rest of Theron's filmography, most of her movies fall into a box-office spectrum between $20 and $60 million dollars. Among them, The Cider House Rules, Monster, and The Devil's Advocate all performed pretty well, but several of the movies really built around Theron's star wattage, like Aeon Flux and Sweet November, couldn't even crack $30 million.
What Hollywood Thinks: And yet, despite that somewhat worrisome track record, there's suddenly a buzz around Theron like there hasn't been in a long time. “It’s a nice little renaissance,” says one agent, “After the Oscar, there was a little bit of a funk. Aeon Flux didn’t work. In the Valley of Elah didn’t work. For a while, she didn’t even have an agent — just her former United Talent Agency manager, J.J. Harris. But for all his bluster and bullshit, she’s been having a very strong go with Ari Emanuel.”
While another agent thinks she is regarded as a dramatic actress
who can also do comedy, our first agent insists, “If she’s as good as
everyone says she is in Young Adult, there’s nothing she can’t
do as an actress, because she [also] clearly has the dramatic chops, and
she has the physicality to do these action movies; that’s about as wide
a range as one can get.”
“I think the fact that she’s so protective and hidden, that makes
her more special,” says one top press rep, “She’s not on every magazine
under the sun, so people want more: ‘Who is she? What is she?’ Even
[George] Clooney — who is very private — is more in the public eye
because of his relationships.”
That said, Theron is no Garbo. “She understands the strategy with campaigns,” says this Über-flack,
“When there’s a reason to be out there, she is. But she’s not out
there, every day and night on a red carpet — and people gravitate to
that. Because she’s not working twelve months a year, people think when
she does something, ‘It’s probably a hidden gem!’ She only picks
projects that she’s passionate about. And still, at the same time, she’s
relatable. She keeps to herself, and manages a personal and
professional life. At least in the public eye, that she seems to balance
it all is so important, because people are trying to do the same thing
with their own lives. And so she can be the spokesperson for Dior,
because she’s very ‘all around.’ I gravitate towards more actors that
are under-the-radar, and as a publicist, that’s my philosophy when it
comes to press: Your work has to match your press. If you haven’t worked
in six months, you shouldn’t be on the cover of magazines. In a perfect
world, your body of work should match how the public perceives you.”
“I like that she never comes off like some sort of fame whore,”
agrees our second rep, a talent agency partner, “She’s a class act: You
never read weird, crazy-ass person stuff about her. She’s just an
artist. Okay: So she’s a little fussy. But I don’t like when they’re all
over the marketplace all the time — the same fucking faces, over and
over again. She clearly challenges herself; tries to transform herself.
There is literally not one negative thing I can say about her. I think
she’s doing what she should be doing, keeping it versatile. She’s a
long-haul actress.”
The Analysis: Welcome back, Charlize! The well-liked actress is surging again after a filmic slump, and from the looks of it, she has no intention of letting her comeback go to waste. The commercial appeal of Young Adult may be relatively modest, but it's a film that will reestablish Theron creatively before a string of potential box office hits waiting in the wings. In a studio climate that's pretty tough even for Oscar-awarded actresses in their late thirties, it's unusual for some of Theron's biggest movies to potentially be ahead of her.
The Analysis: Welcome back, Charlize! The well-liked actress is surging again after a filmic slump, and from the looks of it, she has no intention of letting her comeback go to waste. The commercial appeal of Young Adult may be relatively modest, but it's a film that will reestablish Theron creatively before a string of potential box office hits waiting in the wings. In a studio climate that's pretty tough even for Oscar-awarded actresses in their late thirties, it's unusual for some of Theron's biggest movies to potentially be ahead of her.
Theron is regarded as picky, but then again, her pickiness is finally paying dividends. “She was offered J. Edgar. And Gravity, that [Alfonso] Cuarón movie,” notes one of the agents we spoke to, adding, “They want her for Oblivion
with Tom Cruise, but I don’t see how that even would work,
schedule-wise.” Says a third agent, “There is a good job being done for
her. I think she’s making some interesting choices, like going from Young Adult
to do the George Miller thing.” Also a smart move: Her upcoming action
movies will be sold heavily on Theron, but she's not out there on her
own. Her role in Prometheus is a significant supporting part in a deep ensemble, while Huntsman and Mad Max back her up with other big stars in the lead roles.
Ultimately, all the reps we spoke to were impressed by Theron's
clear intention to keep pushing herself onscreen in the service of good
material. “Remember As Good As It Gets?" said one agent. "That
role was, until the very last moment, going to be played by Holly
Hunter. Then, at the last moment, she left it, and Helen Hunt won the
Oscar. But if [Hunter] had decided to move forward on it, she’d have won
the Oscar, too. The role in Young Adult is that strong. If she
pulls it off, she’s certain to get another Oscar nomination, but not
just because it’s a great part, but because she’s doing something with
it that’s really, really hard for an actor to do: You’re actually the
villain, and yet, somehow, the audience is still pulling for you. She’s
essentially playing the Julia Roberts role in My Best Friend’s Wedding, where she’s actually the bad guy, trying to steal her friend’s man. And yet: You root for her."
The Bottom Line: Theron is suddenly capitalizing on all the potential she had after winning the Oscar for Monster,
and though it may be overdue, we say better late than never. Her
box-office stock depreciated a little bit over the last decade, but we
recommend that you buy now while the entry point is affordable, because
Theron's about to take off again.
Buy/Sell/Hold: Strongest Possible Buy
Buy/Sell/Hold: Strongest Possible Buy
