It’s the end of September and that means a brand-new Film Pigs podcast featuring the return of Stephen Falk! This time, we’re talking the death of the movie star vehicle, the latest movie news, courtroom drama, an ultimately too-long bizarre line reading, games, and the long-awaited return of DTV Corner with Todd’s real-life cousin and not-at-all-made-up-nonsense-character Tonn Slingdog!
This time, on a very special episode of The Film Pigs Podcast:
- Intro
- Movie News
- Host Todd Robert Anderson presents this episode’s theme: Death of the Movie Star Vehicle
- Movie Jail
- The Nic Cage Memorial Bizarre Line Reading
- Pitch Me: Star Vehicle Edition!
- The Bottom 5
- A Moment of Positivity
- Outro
I’d say all the “Liam Neeson Beats Up People” movies he’s starred in since TAKEN are fine examples of star vehicles.
It seems like Euro-produced sub 40-mil movies have taken the star vehicle template studios used to use for big movies and are applying it to “smaller” stars (Neeson, Statham, etc.) and scoring a big payoff once in a while.
There is definitely something to this.
Tom Cruise made an incredible movie a few years ago called EDGE OF TOMORROW that barely scraped by $100 million domestically. How it didn’t make three times that blows my mind.
Harrison Ford hasn’t had a hit vehicle in decades that wasn’t a well-known IP.
Even the once-bulletproof Will Smith has faltered a bunch of over the last decade. Maybe his monumentally obnoxious kids have soured the public’s opinion of him somewhat.
Denzel Washington is probably the most consistent movie star. His movies rarely bomb and he seems fairly choosy about what he does.
Tom Hanks has, arguably, the most varied career of any A-list star. He does different kinds of movies. Some of which come and go without a peep. But when he’s on form (as in BRIDGE OF SPIES) it’s hard to find someone more engaging on screen.
Yes, Hollywood is ruled by IP. Re-packaging what has been sold before in a shinier box is what mainstream cinema is all about. How pretty the box is is all that matters. Not what’s inside.
Domestically Denzel might be the most consistent but worldwide it’s still Cruise. The last Cruise-led movie to fail to gross $200 million WW is EYES WIDE SHUT. By contrast, this century Denzel has had only two $200 million movies.
Loved Edge of Tomorrow, but I think the marketing was clunky, which didn’t help win audiences. The data-driven nature of big-budget productions is at odds with a big action movie with a non-standard plot device. They tried marketing it as just a big action beat-em-up when it was really about a shitty person learning to step up. Also, not crazy about the title (the original or the replacement).