TravisR
Senior HTF Member
Exactly. "Disney's got their franchises, this is ours!"
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The Mummy (2017) (1 Viewer)
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Winston T. Boogie
Senior HTF Member
Well, I don't blame them for wanting to capitalize on properties they own but I am not sure making action packed monster films set in the present day is the way to go. I think audiences will notice...and not really like...that they are attempting to turn the Universal monster films into a cross between a Marvel picture and Mission Impossible.
That said I have felt for some time that of the monster films the one that could really use a remake is Creature from the Black Lagoon. I think that could get a giant upgrade and they could come up with a really creepy film that could in fact be set in the present day. Everything else though...they are bound to turn into a crapfest of epic proportions.
That said I have felt for some time that of the monster films the one that could really use a remake is Creature from the Black Lagoon. I think that could get a giant upgrade and they could come up with a really creepy film that could in fact be set in the present day. Everything else though...they are bound to turn into a crapfest of epic proportions.
+10 gazillion. I really want a Creature remake. I do believe the classic design should be retained with perhaps some updates. Bring it on!
Saw it this morning
Hated it in every way.
I'm angry
Worse than Baywatch.....and I didn't think that was possible a few days ago.
Worse film of the year so far for me. And Tom Cruises worst film and worst performance.
I thought It had zero clue as to what kind of film it wanted to be.
Did I mention I hated it?
Hated it in every way.
I'm angry
Worse than Baywatch.....and I didn't think that was possible a few days ago.
Worse film of the year so far for me. And Tom Cruises worst film and worst performance.
I thought It had zero clue as to what kind of film it wanted to be.
Did I mention I hated it?
Come on Tino, how do you REALLY feel???
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I think he's anxiously awaiting the sequel!
RobertR
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LOL I did say I didn't care for the characters or story.You guys game me false hope!!
Damn you RobertR!!
SamT
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Winston T. Boogie
Senior HTF Member
This is an interesting article as much about the death of the movie star as it is The Mummy being a Tom Cruise run project. It does seem true that "movie stars" seem to be no longer what is required to launch a picture. Now it seems that the most important thing is the property, whatever it is, is well known and already has a following. This severely cuts into the diversity of stories we are likely to see get greenlit because in days past any type of story or film could be launched into production by a big name star or stars signing on.
Interestingly it seems the approach Universal is/was attempting to take here was to put known "stars" in these monster films. Obviously there was once a time when teaming Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe would have meant something in terms of box office bang...not anymore. Both actors are on the backside of their careers and outside of appearing in a hot known franchise do not draw the crowds they once did.
Cruise can likely churn out successful Mission Impossible films for a few more years (though he is 6 years from turning 60 and I am not sure even Cruise will be able to pull off a Mission Impossible film at that age) but outside of those films he seems not to be able to carry a film anymore.
Who are the "big draw" movie stars of the present day? I have no idea. I sort of thought the pairing of Pratt and Lawrence in Passengers was meant to turn them into the giant "stars" of our time but that did not happen. I am unaware of any actors at the moment that would put a lot of fannies in the seats and maybe this is how studios like it. Rather than paying "stars" huge salaries they can just hire all sorts of random actors and put them in known "franchise" films.
Look at the Star Wars films they are making now as an example. Other than bringing back members of the old cast, who honestly outside of Ford are not stars, none of the cast were big "stars" nor well known.
Has the franchise film killed the movie star?
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I think there's something to be said for that.
With that said, in my view, it seems wrong for the studio to blame Cruise for how the movie turned out. And, to their credit so far, it doesn't seem that they are. They hired Cruise, an actor that studio has used before, knowing full well that he's a hands on guy who gets a lot of say with how the movie turns out. If you don't want that kind of participation from your lead actor, hire a different lead actor.
But more generally, yes, I think we're nearing the end of the movie star. Entertainment has just become too fragmented, and the types of roles played by actors, and even the idea of the actor's screen persona, has changed so much. Last year, I made it my mission to watch every single Cary Grant movie - he made 72 of them over a thirty-four year span. The movies themselves are widely varied, comedies, romances, action pictures, war films, dramas, biopics, etc. And yet, in almost all of them, Grant is playing a variation on the same character. (At the very beginning of his career, before the studio he was under contract with knew what to do with him, they'd put him in all sorts of roles, many of which weren't quite right for him. But once it clicked for what kind of part suited him best, he made a career of it.) But this makes sense in a time where what you saw on screen what all you got. Sure, there were tabloids then and media coverage, but nothing like the explosion today. We don't need the movies to tell us who these actors are; there's the Internet for that. As an audience, we've also changed as far as what kind of acting we like; we now tend to favor more naturalistic acting, where we're looking for someone to disappear into a part. We don't want to see the actor, we want to see the character. That's problematic for stars like Tom Cruise (and would be a problem for Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart and pretty much all of the stars of old if they were still working) who have built their careers on being a recognizable variation of the same persona.
Look at a guy like Chris Hemsworth. He's a talented actor and appealing to watch onscreen. His appearances as Thor have been wildly successful. Studios want to believe that because this guy has starred in five big hits, two of which were billion dollar grossing films, that he's a movie star. And while I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest if he was, the evidence would suggest otherwise. His four Marvel appearances were all box office gold, and so was the Snow White And The Huntsman movie. But look outside of that, and it's not a pretty picture. Ron Howard used him as a lead twice, and both films flopped. Michael Mann used him as a lead; the film flopped. Remakes of Red Dawn and Vacation flopped. The Snow White-minus-Snow White sequel flopped. The Ghostbusters remake did mediocre business. I'm not saying that Hemsworth is personally responsible for those failures; he was hired to do a job, and did it. But the studios clearly believed that because the Marvel movies he was in were grossing hundreds of millions that that would translate to other films. But the Marvel audience doesn't go to see Chris Hemsworth specifically. They go to see Thor. And if Hemsworth isn't Thor, the people who like him in that role aren't coming out to see him in another role.
And that, in a nutshell, seems to be the story across the board. People still like the Mission Impossible movies, but that hasn't helped Cruise's non-MI projects domestically. Robert Downey Jr might be considered to be the biggest star around by many, and when he's Iron Man, the movie grosses over a billion; but when he makes a film like The Judge, no one goes out to see it. Gal Gadot is killing it as Wonder Woman, but if they cast her in a non-franchise film tomorrow, it wouldn't make Wonder Woman dollars.
I think audiences are also getting conditioned to what films they "have" to see in theaters, and which films they can wait to watch at home, or skip altogether. I realize I live in possibly the most expensive market in the country for moviegoing, but even in less expensive markets, prices are rising faster than inflation, while the experience of going to the theaters is sinking in quality. Studios are devaluing their own content and teaching us that moves intrinsically don't have much value in and of themselves; they do this by releasing movies for home viewing less than three months after opening in theaters, and by making them available so widely and inexpensively. Illegally downloading and streaming movies is so easy to do, and whether its widely acknowledged or not, that makes a difference. For a lot of viewers, the question isn't whether or not they'll see a particular film - it's whether or not they'll pay to see it, but one way or the other, they will see it.
Cruise's last summer release, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, was a big hit, and The Mummy is not. I don't think the M:I film was great either, but it had Cruise playing the role that he's most associated with and that audiences already felt a connection to. It had a genuinely insane "never seen anything like that before" major stunt done for real (Cruise hanging off the side of the plane) that was heavily promoted, and was exactly the kind of "Holy crap, I need to see that in theaters" event that draws people out of their houses today. On the other hand, The Mummy trailer featured a generic looking role for Cruise and uninspired CGI spectacle; there was nothing about the trailer that explained why you needed to drop everything and see this movie now. Since movies now live or die on their opening weekend grosses, the ad campaign really needs to convince you that the movie is so important that you must drop everything and see it opening weekend. If you don't, the movie is sunk. They didn't convince most people that it was an essential movie to see immediately, so people didn't.
With that said, in my view, it seems wrong for the studio to blame Cruise for how the movie turned out. And, to their credit so far, it doesn't seem that they are. They hired Cruise, an actor that studio has used before, knowing full well that he's a hands on guy who gets a lot of say with how the movie turns out. If you don't want that kind of participation from your lead actor, hire a different lead actor.
But more generally, yes, I think we're nearing the end of the movie star. Entertainment has just become too fragmented, and the types of roles played by actors, and even the idea of the actor's screen persona, has changed so much. Last year, I made it my mission to watch every single Cary Grant movie - he made 72 of them over a thirty-four year span. The movies themselves are widely varied, comedies, romances, action pictures, war films, dramas, biopics, etc. And yet, in almost all of them, Grant is playing a variation on the same character. (At the very beginning of his career, before the studio he was under contract with knew what to do with him, they'd put him in all sorts of roles, many of which weren't quite right for him. But once it clicked for what kind of part suited him best, he made a career of it.) But this makes sense in a time where what you saw on screen what all you got. Sure, there were tabloids then and media coverage, but nothing like the explosion today. We don't need the movies to tell us who these actors are; there's the Internet for that. As an audience, we've also changed as far as what kind of acting we like; we now tend to favor more naturalistic acting, where we're looking for someone to disappear into a part. We don't want to see the actor, we want to see the character. That's problematic for stars like Tom Cruise (and would be a problem for Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart and pretty much all of the stars of old if they were still working) who have built their careers on being a recognizable variation of the same persona.
Look at a guy like Chris Hemsworth. He's a talented actor and appealing to watch onscreen. His appearances as Thor have been wildly successful. Studios want to believe that because this guy has starred in five big hits, two of which were billion dollar grossing films, that he's a movie star. And while I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest if he was, the evidence would suggest otherwise. His four Marvel appearances were all box office gold, and so was the Snow White And The Huntsman movie. But look outside of that, and it's not a pretty picture. Ron Howard used him as a lead twice, and both films flopped. Michael Mann used him as a lead; the film flopped. Remakes of Red Dawn and Vacation flopped. The Snow White-minus-Snow White sequel flopped. The Ghostbusters remake did mediocre business. I'm not saying that Hemsworth is personally responsible for those failures; he was hired to do a job, and did it. But the studios clearly believed that because the Marvel movies he was in were grossing hundreds of millions that that would translate to other films. But the Marvel audience doesn't go to see Chris Hemsworth specifically. They go to see Thor. And if Hemsworth isn't Thor, the people who like him in that role aren't coming out to see him in another role.
And that, in a nutshell, seems to be the story across the board. People still like the Mission Impossible movies, but that hasn't helped Cruise's non-MI projects domestically. Robert Downey Jr might be considered to be the biggest star around by many, and when he's Iron Man, the movie grosses over a billion; but when he makes a film like The Judge, no one goes out to see it. Gal Gadot is killing it as Wonder Woman, but if they cast her in a non-franchise film tomorrow, it wouldn't make Wonder Woman dollars.
I think audiences are also getting conditioned to what films they "have" to see in theaters, and which films they can wait to watch at home, or skip altogether. I realize I live in possibly the most expensive market in the country for moviegoing, but even in less expensive markets, prices are rising faster than inflation, while the experience of going to the theaters is sinking in quality. Studios are devaluing their own content and teaching us that moves intrinsically don't have much value in and of themselves; they do this by releasing movies for home viewing less than three months after opening in theaters, and by making them available so widely and inexpensively. Illegally downloading and streaming movies is so easy to do, and whether its widely acknowledged or not, that makes a difference. For a lot of viewers, the question isn't whether or not they'll see a particular film - it's whether or not they'll pay to see it, but one way or the other, they will see it.
Cruise's last summer release, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, was a big hit, and The Mummy is not. I don't think the M:I film was great either, but it had Cruise playing the role that he's most associated with and that audiences already felt a connection to. It had a genuinely insane "never seen anything like that before" major stunt done for real (Cruise hanging off the side of the plane) that was heavily promoted, and was exactly the kind of "Holy crap, I need to see that in theaters" event that draws people out of their houses today. On the other hand, The Mummy trailer featured a generic looking role for Cruise and uninspired CGI spectacle; there was nothing about the trailer that explained why you needed to drop everything and see this movie now. Since movies now live or die on their opening weekend grosses, the ad campaign really needs to convince you that the movie is so important that you must drop everything and see it opening weekend. If you don't, the movie is sunk. They didn't convince most people that it was an essential movie to see immediately, so people didn't.
TravisR
Senior HTF Member
Tom Cruise is nearing the end of being a massive movie star but that's perfectly normal because no one stays at the top forever. I'm much more impressed by how amazing of a run he had. How many actors have managed to maintain his level of box office popularity for more than 30 years? John Wayne? I'm sure there's others (Tom Hanks is on his way) but even iconic movie stars like Clark Gable, Paul Newman or the aforementioned Cary Grant didn't manage to be big box office draws for as long as Tom Cruise has.
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John Wayne for sure, though Wayne's late career output is probably no worse than The Mummy. (You could probably argue that Wayne doing cop movies like Brannigan was the result of movies like Dirty Harry taking off, and a reaction to that, as well as a corrective to his turning it down. Replace "cop movie" with "franchise movie" and there you go.)
Cary Grant is close - he was a top draw from the mid-to-late 1930s through the mid-1960s, so that's about the same. The difference with Grant was that he never desired to be a supporting player. In his last film, "Walk, Don't Run", he probably has the most screen time, but the story isn't really about his character; rather, it's about how his character helps a younger couple fall in love. Although he was great in the part, he decided that he didn't want to be second fiddle, and walked away. Cruise has shown a willingness to play supporting roles and take on other parts in addition to his star vehicle roles, so I think Cruise will end up sticking around longer because of that.
I love Tom Hanks as well, but his popularity as a box office draw is fading. His last big budget attempt, Inferno, was a major flop, despite being a based on a best-selling book and a sequel to two very popular films. He did a smaller film this year that I actually wanted to see called The Circle, but it was DOA and disappeared quickly from theaters near me. Actually The Circle is a great example about how older movie stars are basically irrelevant and newer actors aren't becoming movie stars despite starring in top grossing films. Tom Hanks was in the film, and that wasn't enough. Emma Watson is in the film, who has starred in multiple billion dollar grossing films, and is a household name thanks to Harry Potter, and just reintroduced herself a month earlier with the billion dollar grossing remake of Beauty And The Beast. But it turns out, none of that stuff matters to folks. It turns out, despite her movies grossing billions of dollars, no one thinks of them as "Emma Watson movies" and no one thinks of her as a star. If the movie interests people, they'll see it regardless of her presence; if it doesn't, they won't come out no matter who's in it.
The Age of the Movie Star is fading??? Hardly! Two words: DANNY MCBRIDE.
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??
Sadly I had to Google him to find out who he is. I still didn't recognize him from anything.
Big star for sure!!
Sadly I had to Google him to find out who he is. I still didn't recognize him from anything.
Big star for sure!!
Malcolm R
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I'm curious how this film got released in China. Didn't they pass on Ghostbusters last year because it contained supernatural elements? Or is it just specifically "ghosts" that they object to, and reanimated corpses are OK?
And I agree with the sentiments here that the age of the "movie star" is over. I can't think of any actor whose pictures are a "must see" for me simply because they are in it.
And I agree with the sentiments here that the age of the "movie star" is over. I can't think of any actor whose pictures are a "must see" for me simply because they are in it.
Winston T. Boogie
Senior HTF Member
Well, I don't think franchise films need movie stars to be successful. And because so much of what they want to produce today is sequels and franchise films there is far less need for a star. I have not seen the new Wonder Woman film but everybody seems to like the woman that plays Wonder Woman. I don't think this will translate to her being a "star" she will just be an actor that can continue to play Wonder Woman until the Wonder Woman reboot.
RobertR
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The disappearance of the movie star is one of the reasons why I stopped caring about the Academy Awards. Today's actors have no cachet, no glamor. I would hardly be excited to meet any of them. If I could time travel back to 1939, it would be very different.
You need to get out more Alf.??
Sadly I had to Google him to find out who he is. I still didn't recognize him from anything.
Big star for sure!!
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