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Episode 11 - The Death of the Movie Star
26 Plays1 year ago
This thought-provoking episode of The Study Pipe Podcast, we venture into the intricate and ever-changing realm of movie stardom. With a keen eye on history and current trends, we dissect how factors like blockbuster franchises, streaming services, and technological advancements have transformed the concept of a movie star. We'll discuss the intersection of fame, technology, and cultural shifts, bringing to light how these elements collectively influence the star power in modern cinema. Perfect for film enthusiasts and industry observers, this episode offers a comprehensive analysis of the past, present, and future of movie stardom. Tune in for a deep dive into the world of cinematic fame and its new frontiers. 🎬🌟💡
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Transcript
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome
Return to Podcast
00:00:27
Speaker
back to the study pipe. This is Zach and I'm with... You are with Andrew. It feels good to be back then. It's been many moons and maybe even a season, huh? It has. I think the last time we recorded Barack Obama was still president. Yeah, first term.
Death of the Movie Star
00:00:48
Speaker
What are we talking about today? You tell me. You said that you had a
00:00:54
Speaker
I was going to be on the hot seat today and that you had some questions prepared for me. I'm not aware what those questions are. I had a good time the last episode where I was in the hot seat and we were talking film in general and some other interesting things. I wanted to flip the table around and really develop some questions
00:01:21
Speaker
that explore this concept that I think has been showing up more and more recently
00:01:28
Speaker
and different articles, social media, podcasts, whatever, that is really the death of the movie star. And I think it's an interesting concept. I think there's
Shift from Stars to Properties
00:01:41
Speaker
a lot going on in the industry right now. When we grew up watching films, we had Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, all these heavyweight movie stars. And I think today we're in an age where
00:01:57
Speaker
the property itself is the star. And that's my opinion. Maybe you don't share that one, but I've developed some questions that explore this topic, the death of the movie star and whether it is true in your eyes or not. All right. I'm excited. I have a lot of opinions on this. Some of them
Actors and Iconic Roles
00:02:22
Speaker
are very loud.
00:02:24
Speaker
Interesting. Okay. I mean, I know I've heard you kind of talk about this a little bit here and there, but I don't think I've ever pinned you down and really sat down to kind of pick your brain on it. So I'm excited too. And how many questions do I have here? I have 15. Oh, shoot. So this is kind of like a job interview right now.
00:02:50
Speaker
I got my suit and tie on. I can't see it trusted today. Yeah, I trust. Okay, if you were in a suit and tie, and maybe you really are, but you had to wear a
00:03:05
Speaker
This is pre-question one. This is a question one. This is a question one. I really hit on a relevant topic here. Right. If you had to wear a movie themed tie to this interview right now, what theme would you use? What tie? Like a movie, an actor, star, character? Pee Wee Herman bow tie all day, every day. Really? No, I wouldn't wear that. I was like, wow, OK. No, what would I wear?
00:03:36
Speaker
Oh, you know, I would, uh, if I had to like dress to impress, it would definitely be like one of the guys from Inception. Nice. Or, you know, pick any of the recent James Bond movies. I respect that. That'd be cool. Yeah. Daniel Craig. Yeah. And, um, no time to die. He had some good fits there. Oh yeah. And, uh, that, uh, going back to Casino Royale, that wasn't the baby blue suit that he was wearing.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good look. Yeah, that's a good one. As I said, I'd wear what he's wearing in the chair. A little to the left. Yeah, a little to the left. All right, so I'll get back on track here. So question one, what first comes to mind when you hear the term movie star?
00:04:29
Speaker
And how has that definition evolved over the decades in your opinion? You know, uh, as much as I hate to admit it, um, the first thing I hear when I hear a movie star, it's not a person that pops in my head. It's like a Marvel character. Interesting. You know, like, uh, like Thor or Iron Man. And I feel like these roles, like, I think we're,
00:04:59
Speaker
I think that's because we're seeing these people like Chris Hemsworth or Robert Downey Jr. play
Indie Projects vs. Box Office Hits
00:05:05
Speaker
this character for so long and with such high press that it's hard to really differentiate them from the role. I think that's part of the reason that that popularity doesn't carry over to other works.
00:05:22
Speaker
When I think of Chris Hemsworth, I only want to really see him in Thor. I don't really care so much about his other works in a way that drives me to go see the movie. If the movie seems interesting, I'll go see it. But when I think of Chris Hemsworth, I think of the role of Thor.
00:05:38
Speaker
That makes sense. So if I say movie star right now, first thing that pops in your head, you don't think of like your Brad Pitts, your Johnny Depps. Not anymore. Yeah. Really? It would have been five years ago. And I think we're quick to blame Marvel and the movie studios for the death of the movie star.
00:06:02
Speaker
But I think that, I actually think that there's another aggregate, like another factor that happened about at the start of Marvel, which was we saw a lot of, it was like really popular for these big movie stars, Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, to kind of go Oscar baiting from like, I would say 2005 to like 2012, where we had all these people that were big box office draws that started,
00:06:32
Speaker
going for these smaller indie projects where there is Oscar bait. It was
DiCaprio as a Star Exception
00:06:36
Speaker
a Will Smith doing The Pursuit of Happiness or what was that movie where he planned to have himself cut up and donate all of his organs at the end of it? It was like eight pounds or something. Seven pounds, I thought. Seven pounds, yeah. Yeah, that one. Or, you know, you had Leonardo DiCaprio who
00:06:58
Speaker
became so selective that he was just picking movies specifically designed for to have the best director and the best chance of winning an Oscar. If I can interrupt you because you sparked a sub-question to this first one. You're touching on question two, which is what impact in what ways have blockbuster franchises
00:07:24
Speaker
really impacted the traditional concept of a movie star. But kind of tying that question into what you just said here, how do you differentiate Leonardo DiCaprio, who to me is a movie star? I go see his movies not because he's Thor or the property is bringing me to see that movie.
00:07:45
Speaker
But I go because it's DiCaprio, and I want to see him, the movie star, and his acting ability. So right now, you're talking about Hemsworth, but there's this reality that you have DiCaprio who still exists within the modern day beast of Hollywood. And how do you compare and contrast what he's offering audiences versus this
00:08:12
Speaker
Studio system that really is is putting forward You know the property and slotting in good fits if you will for the character. Yeah, I think he's a he's a great example And I get let me preface this by saying that I don't think that the movie star is dead yet I Think it's a dying. It's potentially dying. It's it's It can go one way or the other we can see a return Or we could
00:08:40
Speaker
just see it fully die.
Downey Jr. and Franchise Success
00:08:42
Speaker
He's one of those people that has still carried over as a box office draw. You can look at The Revenant, which it wasn't a box office draw like The Avengers, but for a movie about a guy out in the wilderness and fighting a bear, that movie did really well financially. I think you can make an argument that people still go see
00:09:06
Speaker
Leonardo DiCaprio, they still go see Tom Cruise for Tom Cruise movies. Even Matt Damon, he's one of the top box office draws. I know he had the last duel, which flopped, but a lot of his movies like The Martian did amazingly well. You can't say that wasn't partly due to Matt Damon.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, I went to see it. Well, I mean, yeah, Sir Ridley Scott involvement, his involvement, but you know, Matt Damon, I still will go see a Matt Damon flick because, you know, he has that movie star draw for me. I think for me, it's just hard to look at the current
00:09:47
Speaker
you know, playing field of Hollywood and see anyone who is clearly up to the task of, of, you know, being past this torch from, you know, Matt Damon, he's, he's getting up there and age, you know, Brad Pitt, nearly 60 now, Tom Cruise, same. You know, you have all these movie stars who are aging out and I wonder how much of it is, has to deal with like, you know, me and you grew up and, and we're still kind of following these guys and gals around.
00:10:17
Speaker
as they make a film versus this new environment where you really do have the property drawing people in. But on that note, Robert Downey Jr. is kind of, to me, in the middle of this classic movie star kind of definition I have in my mind versus the property driving people in because he really became
00:10:44
Speaker
Tony Stark. I think there's elements of both ends of the spectrum involved in that role and even him kind of carrying Marvel. And some maybe would make an argument that since Iron Man died, spoiler, the MCU isn't really what it used to be. Yeah. I think you have a big example there. For one,
00:11:11
Speaker
I think Robert Denny Jr. is the perfect example of this post-movie star, actually, because if you look at Tony Stark, every role that he's had that's been successfully in the box office, like, for example, Sherlock Holmes, you can argue that Sherlock Holmes is just a British version of Tony Stark at the end of the day. As
MCU Actors Beyond Their Roles
00:11:36
Speaker
you remember, Robert Denny Jr.
00:11:41
Speaker
He was a, he was washed up prior to Tyre Man. He was someone that kind of got washed out of Hollywood. He had many years of addiction, hadn't been in a financially successful movie in a long time prior. You know, you can look back to like Kiss Kiss Big Bang, but that was more of like an indie hit. And so I would say that Robert Dye Jr. is someone that
00:12:09
Speaker
he so embodied the role of Tony Stark that he was able to successfully become a box office draw outside of outside of Iron Man by basically just rebranding Tony Stark and other roles. So do you think it right now it would you make an argument or do you think there is an argument to be made that
00:12:35
Speaker
Captain America, Thor, are just not compelling enough characters to allow Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans to transcend to that super stardom because I don't think they've carried any films outside of the MCU in a massive way. I don't go see a movie because Chris Evans is in it. I see
00:13:02
Speaker
the Avengers films, the MCU films because of the characters first and foremost. Same thing with Hemsworth. I mean, he's popular. I do enjoy watching his movies, but he doesn't really draw me to the theater the same way that Robert Downey would. And maybe it's because Downey Jr.'s performance was so incredible. As you're saying, it revitalized his whole career. You know, a combination of his acting ability and talent
00:13:32
Speaker
Plus an amazing character, you know, maybe that's the secret sauce that is kind of missing for some of these other people. Yeah. Well, I'm trying to think, I think, uh, I think Hemsworth, I'm going to be honest. I think you can interchange a lot of people with Thor. It'll be fine. Um, I don't think that Hemsworth's really driving the role of Thor. I think that's more of like people just liking the character of Thor.
00:14:00
Speaker
I think that
Tom Hardy's Charisma
00:14:01
Speaker
you look at Chris Evans movies and I'm trying to think, but I don't, I think most of his movies have been streaming movies. So we haven't really seen what kind of box office he would do. So like, uh, I'm thinking of like his recent movie pain hustlers. I said Netflix film. Um, you know, the great man wasn't that I think that was Netflix, uh, knives out. That was a Netflix movie. So these weren't like,
00:14:31
Speaker
That was a big box office job. I think that was a Netflix film. Yeah, but I don't think it was, Evans, I think it was Daniel Craig, another older gentleman, but because Bond, I mean, I would say Daniel Craig is a movie star, right? Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. I guess like, well, maybe there's a good counterpoint, right? Like if we're looking at James Bond, that's a huge role that, you know, it's one of the bodies and then
00:15:01
Speaker
Diego Craig comes in and uh, the body's that role that he's able to carry other films outside of it. Yeah. It launches him to super stardom and this kind of goes back to not that like, I mean, it takes that combination of incredible acting ability plus that amazing character. And it goes back to kind of what we were saying about Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man. Maybe that is the secret sauce that
00:15:29
Speaker
You know, you could be a star player, if you will, in these big blockbuster franchises. Chris Evans, you know, Jeremy Rain or all these people. But if you don't have that compelling character, that one that really just that magic sauce to take it to the next level, then, you know, you yeah, you're I mean, these are A-listers. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying, you know, they're not A-listers, but
00:15:59
Speaker
I don't look at Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth the way I look at Daniel Craig or Robert Downey Jr. I do. Craig's a great actor. Chris Evans sucks. Chris Hemsworth sucks. They're not good actors. These are people that are hired because they're cheap. Chris Evans was a failed actor prior to Marvel. They did. They tried to push him into what? Eighteen. They tried to push him into Fantastic Four. It never worked. Like when he got cast as Captain America,
00:16:27
Speaker
I remember being disappointed. Yeah. I remember too. Yup. Yeah. And I think I see a lot of social media posts about people pushing like Chris Evans being great in this or, you know, I thought he sucked and I was out too. I thought he was one of the weak points of the movie. Yeah. I mean, I, I enjoyed him in knives out, but he wasn't, he didn't carry it for me. I mean, it was Anna de Armas. It was Daniel Craig, you know, it,
00:16:57
Speaker
He was, he was outclassed by everyone in that film. Yeah, he was. I'd agree with that. Yeah. That makes him weak. Like he, like he could be an A-lister. So I guess a good argument for the movie star not being dead. Let's look at the Sony side of the MCU. And you see, uh, all these failed like anti-hero films, except for Venom, which is definitely 100% being carried by Tom Hardy.
00:17:25
Speaker
And I don't know about you, but I think Tom Hardy has that kind of it factor. Like he has that special sauce where he could really carry a movie and roll his own.
00:17:34
Speaker
And I agree with that. I think Tom Hardy has it. I think what he's lacked is, is that perfect role to catapult him. Yeah. It was almost there with Bain, but then there's kind of a low, you know, uh, and it doesn't help when your face has covered the whole thing. Um, but I think Tom Hardy is one.
00:17:57
Speaker
you know, one amazing character in an incredible story away from like super stardom. I do think he is a factor. People listening are probably like, Oh my God, he's in so many good movies. And I'm not saying he isn't, he's in excellent films. But I think, you know, when you you need a role, you need to be in a project where
00:18:24
Speaker
If I come up to any person on the street and I go, name five actors off the top of your head, just five. Oh, Tom Cruise, Tom Anks, Brad Pitt,
Lack of Younger Movie Stars
00:18:33
Speaker
these names pop up. I'm not hearing any of the names of people who are actively in their 30s or 40s working in Hollywood right now. And that's what I think is kind of interesting, strange, sad in a way. But yeah. Oh, yeah. I agree completely.
00:18:55
Speaker
I mean, he hasn't. I will say that his charisma is what carried the Venom movies. Otherwise, that movie, those were not good movies. They were very charismatic movies. I don't hear a lot of people arguing that Venom was a film of the year, but if you look at the box office numbers and
00:19:25
Speaker
the ratings online, you can see that people went and saw that movie. They saw it a bunch of times. And so, you know, what's drawing people to that movie? Yeah. You know, something else, and I'm kind of off script here with, with my questions, but something that's popped into mind is, you know, I think a case could be made that Margo, um, is kind of in hitting that level, you know, with Barbie,
00:19:55
Speaker
Um, recently, I, I really think you could make a case that the films she is starring in is, or are drawing people in, you know, for her and not the character necessarily. I mean, Barbie, of course, people want to see Barbie for the character and all that, but I think you have that combination right there that, you know, Downey jr. Ironman.
00:20:22
Speaker
kind of magic secret sauce recipe. That could have been Margo's star moment. She was obviously in a bunch of good stuff before, Wolf of Wall Street, of course, Itania, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But Barbie may, it in time will tell, may have been the vehicle that kind of puts her up there now. I agree with that. And I think that
00:20:52
Speaker
You can kind of see it becoming that with how upset people got in 2019 with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood when they were pissed with how few lines they shared. They were edging and moaning that she wasn't in the film enough. Yeah, exactly. And when you have people complaining that someone's not in the movie enough, you know they're doing something right, you know? Yeah. Yeah, because I sit here, if I do a quick Google search, Hollywood actors right now, popular Hollywood actors,
00:21:20
Speaker
We get someone we haven't mentioned yet who is notorious, I think, is people have, I've heard all kinds of opinions. You get Dwayne Johnson, The Rock. You get Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy does pop up per Google. So I think we're kind of on the money there. You get DiCaprio. You also get Wonder Woman herself. But I don't, you know, Gal, I don't think I'd make the case that
00:21:50
Speaker
She has been around long enough. No, and I don't know that she's had that combo yet. I mean, yeah, Wonder Woman did fine. And she did a fine job there. But they were boring to me, you know, all the DC films weren't weren't great, in my opinion, you know, they were they were some that were okay, some that were fun. But I don't know that she has a catalog yet that is superstar.
00:22:19
Speaker
Uh, level, but who, what do I know? You make an argument that, uh, Ryan Reynolds is a movie star. I don't know. I don't know if I could. Like free guy. You know, that he had detective Pikachu, which I guess is Pokemon. Did that do well at the box office? I think if I remember correctly, we have like 400 or 50 billion box office. Damn. I could see Ryan Reynolds.
00:22:49
Speaker
I could see an argument being made there. The reason I say that is he also had a, like before he failed, he had like this string of movies where he looked like a box office star. So remember he did like the proposal back in the day and then waiting. And I think like the proposal did like, if I remember correctly, like $300 million on like a $40 million budget. And that was him and Sandra Bullock.
00:23:19
Speaker
He had like the string of like really big hits. And then all of a sudden he just, it was after the green lantern. He just fell apart. Um, Oh, you know, almost got ran out with like how bad he was doing. Cause he did that. Then he did the, what's that movie? The RIP one where he was like a ghost detector. That was one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. If I remember correctly. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. That was bad.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah. And, uh, so then, uh, you know, after that, he was kind of like, no one wanted to touch him because he's lost like the studio so much money on like three straight movies. But then, uh, you know, Deadpool revived him and he could argue that that was kind of his Robert, I do, but you know, I was going to say, yeah, he is Deadpool. And then, uh, you know, then he, he goes there and he, you could say that like pretty much everything he's done since then has
00:24:19
Speaker
had like people notice it like if you know that movie Red Notice that came out on Netflix people watched it like everyone I do watched Red Notice. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, I think maybe why I hesitate is it just feels like I haven't seen anything from him recently that really smacked me but free guy was good. I liked free guy. Red Notice, you know, I thought it was just kind of your
00:24:49
Speaker
generic popcorn film on Netflix. They did the Adam project. Everyone I do watch that one. I didn't watch the Adam project. But it's one of those things where you say, Hey, did you see that new Ryan Reynolds movie? And the person in the office will say, Hey, yeah, the Adam project. And I think a big sign is that he had a cameo in Bullet Train.
00:25:17
Speaker
And that's a movie pop, you know, that's full of big name stars. You got Brad Pitt, you had, uh, um, you know, air Johnson and you know, there's a lot of stars in that movie. And to, to come in as like the surprise cameo in a film like that, that, that shows you what the people in Hollywood think about you. Yeah, that's a good point. So, okay. Getting back kind of on track here and I'm sorry if,
00:25:45
Speaker
you know, gotten us off track. How do you think, so, you know, we're talking about Red Notice, Ryan Reynolds, a couple of these films have been on Netflix, and there are various others. How do you think the rise of streaming platforms have really affected star power of traditional Hollywood actors, if at all? I think it's impacted a lot.
00:26:13
Speaker
A lot of the articles I see you're talking about streaming has killed the movie star. And I don't necessarily agree. For example, like Ryan Reynolds, like we just talked about, what I do think is that we were so indoctrinated into the box office totals, like Will Smith had six consecutive movies that made over a hundred million dollars domestically type of deal. Because
Impact of Streaming on Star Power
00:26:35
Speaker
streaming guards serve their view numbers so closely.
00:26:40
Speaker
It's hard to just have one specific metric that we could go and be like Ryan Reynolds is a star because X amount of people have watched this movie so many times in a row, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. People will tell you that streaming is killing the movie star, but I would argue that Ryan Reynolds hasn't been impacted by that. You could tell because they keep giving him $200 million budget movies
00:27:08
Speaker
you know, so many times in a row of like Netflix and all these different studios. So do you think streaming has diluted the allure of being a Hollywood star or has made it harder? I think that's kind of what you're saying because, you know, you're saying it's, we don't have these clear metrics that we can point to now. Right. Hey, it's six films in a row, a hundred million that it's kind of,
00:27:38
Speaker
exists in the ether, this concept where right now, just by us talking, I've kind of stumbled upon the fact myself that Reynolds is, quote unquote, a movie star. And really, once again, the definition, of course, he stars in movies. He's a movie star. But
00:27:57
Speaker
I think, you know, the definition that I'm sitting here kind of asking my questions from is, you know, the top upper echelon, you know, top dog of Hollywood, you know, these people who are going to inherit, you know, the mantle from your DiCaprio's and, you know, the Jack Nicholson's and, you know, that kind of caliber Meryl Streep, these, these people, um,
00:28:26
Speaker
So I think that's an interesting point that the streaming does, I mean, what it sounds like you're saying is dilute, you know, what is a movie star or what could be clearly pointed to as someone who's a movie star? Yeah, there's a veil over the metrics that we would use previously to say what a movie star is. And in a way, I think it kind of like lowers the bar to become a movie star.
00:28:54
Speaker
And it changes how we, it'll change what we have to do to view what a movie star is. Especially when you, before it would be what actor got me out to the movie theater. Now it's what actor do I see? And I'll just trust that that movie's good on Netflix instead of skipping over to the next one. And that's a different question to ask about what makes a movie star go.
00:29:22
Speaker
because the bar's lower, you've already paid for the service. So what's getting your attention versus what making you willing to go pay and travel to a physical place? Now how much of being a movie star, quote unquote, do you think has to do with the like going to the box office of huge anticipation, like making an event out of the trip to see this actor
00:29:51
Speaker
actress in the role, you know, because you don't get that with Netflix and the stream streaming services, you know, even like Killers of the Flower Moon, right? Wow. You know, De Niro, DiCaprio together again for the first time in however long decades, you know, under Scorsese, like huge. There's so much anticipation. It's an Apple film. You know, it's going to be on Apple.
00:30:20
Speaker
TV, but they knew to drop it in the theater to do a box office run, obviously for financial reasons, but it builds up this event, this atmosphere. It's more than just, eh, that looks good. Let's watch it.
00:30:39
Speaker
on Netflix or whatever, it's, hey, did you hear this new movie's coming out? Are you going to go this weekend? That kind of discussion, I think, builds up this myth of the movie star. 100%, I think that at the time being, that's what's kind of ambiguous about the direction that we're going.
00:31:07
Speaker
And that's kind of in my head when I think about like the death of the movie star versus whether or not it lives is how committed the studios are to really putting the money into marketing to build that mythos and put the movie out in theaters and kind of support that versus pumping the movies into their streaming services. And the
Theater vs. Streaming Releases
00:31:32
Speaker
momentum for the last four years up until recently was to
00:31:37
Speaker
migrate that to the streaming service. And so we were seeing a fast death. But I think that that went too quick and we're starting to see the repercussions for that. Like even, for example, how Disney took a studio like Pixar that was producing billion dollar movie after billion dollar movie. And because they started making their movies direct to streaming,
00:32:03
Speaker
They're like, you're not going to get a billion dollars on those movies anymore. They completely killed the brand overnight. And so now studios are, we're starting to see that kind of pushback, like Killers of the Far Moon did directly go to Apple streaming. It had a theatrical release first. So I don't, I don't know if they're, you know, if there's gonna be enough momentum to save that.
00:32:28
Speaker
It certainly was a good sign to see Oppenheimer and Barbie this summer and how well those did. But Killers of the Flower Moon, if we're judging the money off of how much it made, I think it'll be $150 billion worldwide. Yeah. That definitely isn't going to save it. But then again, Apple, when they first agreed that it was just going to go straight to release on Apple, so they weren't counting on the box office or counting on subscribers.
00:32:57
Speaker
So do you think, to that point, with Apple funding Killers of the Flower Moon, streaming services are, I guess, known for giving creative freedom to filmmakers, right? Yeah. But by doing that, I think that leads to unconventional casting choices that might not happen in a traditional Hollywood kind of setting, if you will. So I am curious if,
00:33:28
Speaker
streaming makes it harder to distinguish or define this next movie store or to have a movie store kind of come out.
00:33:39
Speaker
of the streaming model. But at the same time, it also opens a lot of doors to capture some lightning in the bottle, right? Where you can have someone who's completely off the radar kind of show up and absolutely kill it because of what the streaming environment has created for them in terms of opportunity and launch that next person. I don't know of an example off the top of my head where that's happened.
00:34:09
Speaker
You can think of one. I think that's interesting. I can kind of give you an example in the opposite direction of how fast and loose these companies were with the money. Did you see that recent documentary on Carl, I think Carl Ridge, is this Tim? No, I didn't see it. So he got $11 million for a sci-fi series. Oh, is this the guy who went and gambled it?
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I think that's a perfect example of why it seemed like there was creative control You're just giving you're just wiring someone eleven million dollars and say go make a movie Someone needs to give me Like what there's no monitoring or auditing or like bookkeeping going on here Yeah, I think
00:35:07
Speaker
I think that there was like, I don't know if that's going to happen anymore. I think now we're seeing the studios being way more careful. Like we're watching Netflix. They cancel like half their shows now. They're way more cutthroat. I think that for a while there was way more creative control for the directors, but now I think that all these studios have enough data on what's being watched that they're being very cutthroat and we're seeing way more formula type movies.
00:35:34
Speaker
I think the days of someone being able to take $11 billion and do puts on stocks with it instead of making a show are over. Yeah. Well, on this topic of streaming and what I would say that I think there is a decline of star driven films.
TV's Attraction for Stars
00:35:54
Speaker
I think most of the films out right now are tied to like shared universes or an established property of your
00:36:03
Speaker
reboots and sequel reboots, Scream being rebooted, Indiana Jones sequels, this kind of stuff. I think there has been a decline, but how much of that
00:36:20
Speaker
my question to you, do you think is actually a result or can be contributed to some of these big stars are actually going into high quality TV series and roles? So you got like Nicole Kidman, right? And Reese Witherspoon and Big Little Lies. I think that the more exposure that you see from a star, the less likely you're going to get told to pay to go see them in theaters. That makes sense.
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah, that does. I guess what I'm curious about is, is there a lack of star driven films because now there are people who really are like taking their talents to TV, that they are like in the TV game right now, and strutting their stuff rather than focusing on, you know, I think that, uh, you know, I would put that into the streaming category, which is
00:37:14
Speaker
I still think that we're seeing a lot of star-driven stuff, especially on TV, and in movies. Look at all the ab-sailor movies that come out on Netflix. That's just one example. You'll see a bunch of back in the day before his disease. Bruce Willis straight to streaming movies.
00:37:40
Speaker
They were still baking on the Star Drive. I think that it became cheaper to make movies to just put up on a streaming service that popped in a former A-list actor to get eyes on it than it was to have these people go on the marketing trail for a full theatrical run. The same with TV. If you're going to put a bunch of money into a new IP, which is what a lot of TV is now,
00:38:07
Speaker
It's you want to attach like a star-driven talent where the massive expense of making a film and putting it out to theater, like you're seeing that the risk reward ratio has gone towards using previous IP. You don't necessarily have to have an A-list actor. You just have to have someone that kind of fits the bill of what people are expecting for that IP. It makes sense. It's all costs.
00:38:35
Speaker
a risk-reward calculation for me. It's way more money and there's a lot more moving parts to put a production together that gets the movie out to 4,000 theaters across the country. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. When you read about some of these
00:39:02
Speaker
these advertising trails that actors will go on for a film, it'll be like six months of like going around to the talk show circuits, giving interviews and things like that. It's got to be exhausting. Oh yeah, that has to be. I can't even imagine. Maybe you got like five interviews for Red Notice, for Ryan Reynolds. At least pop that out.
00:39:27
Speaker
moving in a different direction from the streaming services, television, and whatnot. With films increasingly relying on special effects, CGI characters like Caesar from Planet of the Apes, do you think individual actors hold less
CGI Films and Actor Focus
00:39:49
Speaker
sway over movie success? Oh, 100%.
00:39:58
Speaker
I think that a movie's success now is way more story driven than it was previous. And that can be attributed to the CGI in films. I think Avatar, right? Exactly. That's the first thing. You can't even recognize the actors who are in that. I think most people would be very surprised. Was it Rachel Weisz that was a bit? No, not Rachel Weisz. No, no, Kate Winslet. Kate Winslet, yeah. Yep. I bet most people that saw the movie didn't know Kate Winslet was in it.
00:40:27
Speaker
You think you're right. Yeah. Like they'd be surprised. And they tried to do all this marketing for Avatar that kind of fell flat on its face. Like they were, you know, like the holding the record for holding your breath underwater and things like that. And, you know, anecdotal obviously, but most people I talked to had no idea that that was even a thing. Let alone like even the people that are in it.
00:40:53
Speaker
Well, what's interesting is that there's a flip side to this. So yeah, you go see Avatar. You are focused. It's story-driven. You're not really thinking about the movie star acting behind the CGI. Or maybe some people are. But really, I mean, you're there not to see, what's his name? Sam Worthington as Jake Scully, right? You're there to see Jake Scully, the character, the property.
00:41:24
Speaker
But on the other side of that, you have someone like Andy Serkis, who is amazing. I mean, you have Gollum, you have Caesar, you have Snoke. But you have him killing it. And you believe you're watching Caesar, you're watching Gollum.
00:41:51
Speaker
But I would argue that he is a movie star. It's just that people don't see him. They see his incredible acting and ability behind the CGI. So it's kind of interesting that the CGI does kind of take away an actor's ability to really kind of be prominent in that way.
00:42:17
Speaker
Cause I think the average person you go, Hey, do you know who Gollum is? They're like, yeah, you know, you know, but like if you say Andy circuits, I don't, I mean, I think movie fans love movies, obviously no one, but you know, he, he doesn't get any of the respect that he probably deserves. Yeah. This is going to sound kind of cheesy, but maybe in a way,
00:42:46
Speaker
his acting shines through more than someone with star poweredness. And because he's able to drive his performances was driving people to theaters, maybe there's something more fulfilling than that. You'd have to ask him though. You might be like, I just want that $20 million paycheck. Yeah, that's true. Now, do you think there are regions or countries where the concept of the movie star remains stronger than in Hollywood?
00:43:14
Speaker
I
Bollywood's Star Culture
00:43:15
Speaker
mean, my foreign film game lately has been weak, I'm afraid to admit. But it's something I was thinking about where in America, you have this machine of manufacturing the product. And the product has been shared universes and this and that. But I'm curious about whether the South Korean film scene or Bollywood,
00:43:43
Speaker
I've always had the impression that Bollywood films are very movie star driven. That's what I heard, but I don't want to show my ignorance and say that I am up to date enough on that industry to really see if it's true or not. Yeah. I've had quite a few friends who are from India and have spoken to me about the film game out there.
00:44:09
Speaker
I've always had the impression that these actors and actresses are like demigods. They are on that level of... People are going to see the film because they're in it, not because the story looks good or sounds good or whatever. It is interesting, right? You have a system that is quite different than the Hollywood system currently.
00:44:38
Speaker
But yeah, I wonder if South Korea, you know, obviously I've seen some of the bigger South Korean films that have come out recently and they're excellent, but I am curious what their star culture is like. Maybe that's something we should research and circle back on. Yeah, I'd have to come back to that because I'm just going to, I'm really just going to show my ignorance on this one. So, okay. Moving into social media.
Influencers in Movies
00:45:08
Speaker
You have these TikTokers, the influencers, one of them which recently made it into, I can't remember her name. It's some girl who does the, or lady who does the TikTok stuff. She is in the new Thanksgiving film. She made it in.
00:45:31
Speaker
I didn't really recognize her at first, but then caught her. I thought she did okay. She wasn't like a standout performance, but you now have these social media stars who are now transitioning into the Hollywood films. Do you think
00:45:48
Speaker
there is a future or a path where people kind of amass. This is kind of like the Dwayne Johnson, you know, the rock model where he has such a heavy social media influence and following that he's, he kind of willed his way into being a movie star. Although I'd argue that a lot of his films, especially lately, haven't been
00:46:14
Speaker
widely successful or wildly successful. But you have these TikTokers influencers who seem to be primed and ready to leverage their existing fan base to propel them potentially to movie star status. Yeah. And I hope it works out for them. So far, I haven't seen the evidence that it has. Thanksgiving was a box office bomb.
00:46:43
Speaker
I think it barely made back its budget. No way. Really? I thought they greenlit a sequel for it already. They might've, but it's, I think it's like 16 million on a $15 million budget right now. Wow. I saw that they tried with the Logan brothers in a movie and then those guys never got another opportunity. It's one of those things where I think it's going to depend on the person.
00:47:13
Speaker
And you can see historically where this isn't the first round of people that aren't movie stars being given a platform in movies because of their status elsewhere. And I think a perfect example would be music, right? Where Beyonce and
00:47:37
Speaker
you know, um, gold member or you would see Barbara Streisand getting films back in the day or share getting films. And it's, it's kind of hit or miss on whether or not like, I think he's still, you could be someone that has a big following, but if you're not charismatic in film, it's just not going to go anywhere. There's, there's more requirements of just having a built-in audience. And one of those requirements is being someone that's enjoyable to watch for two hours.
00:48:05
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder how much of the 30-second TikTok model prevents these people from developing the skills to be entertaining for two hours. Yeah, and I guarantee that there are going to be people that transition from that, and they're going to be great. I don't know who those people are yet, but it's going to happen. We do see people make the jump. It just hasn't happened yet.
00:48:35
Speaker
or if it hasn't someone I wasn't familiar with. So hold on. I'm looking up Thanksgiving here and it says the, it scored a box office success with 11.1 million in its second weekend. Must've just jumped cause I was looking at it like five days ago. It had an impressive week two drop of just 31% making the smallest or marking the smallest drop for any horror movie in 2023.
00:49:05
Speaker
They go on to say, I think it's at 30-something million on a 38, on a 15 million budget, and they've greenlit a sequel. But that TikTok start, she wasn't the main character. She was just in it. I had noticed that. She may have died. I can't recall. Yeah, but that was $22 million in the US, $50 million remote.
00:49:33
Speaker
I think, uh, yeah, I'll stay corrected that on the 17 million, that was way off on that, but definitely not like, I don't know that she's carrying that though. You know what I mean? I just think it's interesting. You're starting to see kind of these folks creep into the films. And I wonder if that is going to be a trend moving forward where you have Hollywood saying, okay, you got, you know, 50 million Tik TOK followers. Let's see if you can drive them to the movie. And if you can.
00:50:03
Speaker
even if it's shit, but you can, we're going to start propping you up. And then who really, I mean, if people are going for their favorite TikTok person to see a film, maybe that fits the definition of a movie star or star driven film. Now to hit, you know, DiCaprio level status and these other people, you'd have to have a long career of doing this and making good money, I'm sure.
00:50:29
Speaker
Oh yeah. That really, you know, social media, I think does present kind of a new challenge to how we've seen the system develop talent, you know? Oh yeah.
Concert Films in Cinemas
00:50:43
Speaker
And what's a, what should we call it? I think another perfect example is two of the number of movies that we've had going back to October are concert movies.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. I think Beyonce's was just number one, right? It'd be like 25 million. This is not film. That's not film to me. I'm going to be a gay keeper right now, a purist. But no, I mean, respect. You got a product that you're putting in the theater you're selling. It's doing good numbers. I understand. But concert films, does it qualify? Are they telling a story throughout the concert?
00:51:29
Speaker
You know, Hamilton, I'd say does. That's a story. It's play, you know, and, you know, concert, quote unquote, live action kind of, um, you know, singing whatnot. Yeah. It's kind of games for sure. But pure, just pure, pure singing concert. Is that film? I mean, it, I guess, but not really. I guess what I'm thinking of is a person driving someone to the theater. Yeah.
00:51:59
Speaker
And Taylor Swift was a big driver, a movie being like $250 million. Yeah, but Taylor Swift, is she a movie star? What was the movie that she was in back in the day? Like Valentine's Day, wasn't she? She was like the high school cheerleader. What? She was in a movie? I don't realize that. Yeah. What was it? I'm going to look it up real quick. Yeah, I don't know.
00:52:25
Speaker
Yeah, Beyonce movie star. I mean, she's been in movies Beyonce, you know, gold member. Yeah, she was a she's Felicia in Valentine's Day. And then she she also got right over by car and Amsterdam. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, maybe she qualifies shoes in a couple movies and now she has a huge box. It was like one of the
00:52:52
Speaker
Biggest box office losers in like the last 10 years. I know. Yeah, that was a stinker. Couldn't have happened to another person. So I guess. Yeah, right.
Social Media's Influence
00:53:04
Speaker
So something I'm curious to get your take on is, how do you perceive the role of film critics and their influence in the age of Rotten Tomatoes? Oh, it's over. I think that the- And the second half, and I think this is where you're going, is fan-driven scores. You know, like the user, the viewer rating versus the critic rating.
00:53:33
Speaker
I think that we're in this weird area where I think Rotten Tomatoes really just neutered the film critic, the written film critic. I think that film criticism still lives very strong as a persona on YouTube. It'd probably take a talk in Instagram where you have, I think people are watching it more in video form now and finding content creators that they like and respect the opinion of that way. I'm sure that
00:54:00
Speaker
There are still people that are going to Roper's blog and reading his reviews on film. But I think that the last big film critic kind of died with Roger Ebert and that the new wave is people getting their, you know, they're, they're going to, they're going to YouTube and they're, they're going to Instagram and they're finding their favorite, favorite guy there. So how do you, do you think that these fan driven scores or reviewers
00:54:29
Speaker
Because it sounds like the critics no longer have an impact, in your view, on the importance of a movie star being in a film. But what I think I am hearing you say is that really it's people are now kind of finding their tribe, their spokesperson, the person who aligns with their own taste. And they're listening to that in order to make an opinion on whether they should go to the movie or not.
00:54:59
Speaker
the user kind of score or the general audience feedback drives people into the theater more than a movie star would, or, or do you think it's a balance and mixture between the two? I think, uh, I think a lot of people are, they're going to see what kind of what their tribe's thinking on their social media site. And then they'll do a quick glance on Rott tomatoes and look at the critic score.
00:55:27
Speaker
And then we'll look at the aggregate fan score. I don't think most people are scrolling down into the ROT tomato scores to look for one specific critic anymore. They're just like, oh, this has an ID and it has a fan rating of 88. And I watched so and so on YouTube and he liked it. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah.
00:55:51
Speaker
It's hard to say with where we're at now in society with social media. It's just so easy for people to create and so easy for people to really, I guess, get their information from so many different places. It's hard to really put your finger on the pulse, or at least it is for me. It's really difficult.
00:56:21
Speaker
I'll give people the general audience from Slack here. It's hard. The thing about YouTube is that you can just have stuff playing in the background and you can get a general gist of what's going on with the movie and what someone thought of it without having to be actively engaged or you can get a quick TikTok or a quick Instagram
00:56:40
Speaker
and not have to be that engaged, but with so much content, like just so many movies have been released on Netflix every day, Apple every day, the TV shows, everything, stuff coming out in theaters. It's like, I don't have time to go and read an article for every single piece of media. If I was doing that, it would be like 50 articles a day. Like that's just so much content coming out. It'd be more than 50 a day. Like who has the time to go to written format for that? Like we need the short form
00:57:08
Speaker
you know, critic just to even exist in this type of media system. Otherwise I'm just going to go on blind and just get a quick number like Rotten Tomatoes on Rotten Tomatoes in 90. Like, you know, back in the day when the movies coming out, like they are now, I had the time to really dissect what all the reviews were saying. I remember when the glorious bastards came out in 2009, you and I were just sitting there when the first 11 reviews came out. It was like six good, five bad. We're just like, holy shit, Tarantino fuck up. Yeah. It's true. I remember that.
00:57:37
Speaker
We talked about it for weeks. We were nervous. Now it's like, if a bad movie comes out now, we just immediately just push it out. We just don't think about it. There's too much content to really dwell on something bad. Yeah, that's a good point. I guess concluding here, if you could speculate or summarize where you fall on this,
00:58:07
Speaker
The question I have for you is, do you think the era of the movie star, the Tom Cruise, the Brad Pitts, these kinds of careers we've seen, do you think it's truly over or going to be over, or is this just taking a new form that we haven't really fully recognized?
Evolving Nature of Movie Stardom
00:58:30
Speaker
I think I know the answer. Yeah, I think it's a new form.
00:58:34
Speaker
But I don't think that the box office is going to die. I think you can look at like the book industry, right? And there are still big names that come out and they draw a lot of people in to come buy their book. But I don't think that anyone would say that the authors nowadays are as big as the ones who were 50 years ago, 60 years ago. But you still have people that are your big sellers. So I think there's always going to be people that draw people into the theaters.
00:59:03
Speaker
I think that the theater's overall market share of our attention is going to just keep following them, and there's going to be less box office draws, like less box office stars, and we'll still have movie stars, but it'll be people that are streaming, and we'll see them in different types of formats than we're used to, and it's going to evolve.
00:59:27
Speaker
I like that future. I like the idea of this being more democratized. I like the idea of more people having the ability to break in and kind of develop their own following. Maybe not just Massapill, but you know.
00:59:45
Speaker
factions, if you will, of different stars doing different activities. Instead of taking a concentration of power and influence, it's spread out more. It's more distributed. Yeah, exactly. I think people have a doomsday look on it, but I think it's really healthy.
01:00:11
Speaker
I think the fact that you probably had a TikTok star that makes more money probably on TikTok than they ever would in film is trying to get their feet wet in film. They didn't carry it. You can say that's bad or good or whatever, but those are two different audiences that are trying to blend right there. Yeah. That's interesting. The same as when we see someone that writes books trying to write their first screenplay.
01:00:37
Speaker
or like Tarantino who makes movies is starting to get his feet wet and writing novels. And podcasting. And podcasting. And the more that we integrate these streaming services or things like YouTube into ways where people can make money off of YouTube and become YouTube creators as a full-time profession, the more ways we'll see people be able to realize that kind of dream of
01:01:03
Speaker
creating things that people enjoy and there'll be less of one system kind of deciding what people watch and people will watch things that they like without having to really kind of cut off part of their personality if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I think it does.
01:01:26
Speaker
Well, that's all the questions I have for you. Thanks for letting me interview you on this topic. I've been thinking about for a while. I think an interesting one that we need to do, we've talked about it, is how we think artificial intelligence is going to impact the industry.
01:01:49
Speaker
That's a whole can of words. It is all kind of words. You know, I really appreciate your questions. They're really well thought out and got me thinking and cooking my noodle. Thank you. Um, we'll do it again here on whether it's AI or some other topic. The interview format is I think pretty interesting. Yeah. I like pretty thought provoking. I like it a lot. And that we'll get our next one in before the release of GTA six. Yes. That's a guarantee.
01:02:16
Speaker
We can commit to dropping an episode before GTA 6 in 2025.
01:02:26
Speaker
Yeah. Shout out Jordan. It's coming out December 31st, 2025. We got the inside scoop here at the study pipe before anyone else. The guy who leaked everything, I'm friends with him too. I guess he's friends with the son of that guy who is the head of Rockstar North. It's like the kid that you've been playing video games with online. He's like, my dad works for Budgie. Yep. I can get you a new skin. Just give me your credit card.
01:02:56
Speaker
All right. Cool. All right. Well, thanks, man. And thanks for all those listening. We got a couple of interesting ideas kind of baking in the oven that are coming. So stay tuned.