How many flops in a row does an actor need to be considered

>>81069177

It's not just consecutive flops. It factors in number of hits, expectations for each film, etc. It's possible for an actor to have a string of underperforming flops without a second thought, but it can take as little as one to wreck a career. There are a lot of different qualities actors have, and one of the most important is the mystical "box-office draw". This relates to how many tickets will be sold just based on a particular actor (or sometimes director or writer's) presence. Consider the case of Taylor Lautner.

He was in the phenomenally successful Twilight movies, and was pulling in MTV movie awards, all kinds of stuff. As he had a vocal fanbase, it was assumed that he was a draw, so he got cast in a lot of movies with the assumption that they could put him on a poster in a lobby and sell millions of tickets. Wasn't the case, and as soon as people figured out that this crappy actor wasn't able to convert his "fans" into ticket buyers, he became the youngest member of the JUST Adam Sandler movie crowd. Brendan Fraser suffered from a lot of the same fall. It was assumed that he could open a movie, that people would line up to see whatever new movie had Brendan Fraser on the poster. Once they realized that wasn't the case, his career imploded.

Box-Office Draw is only a consideration for "movie star" actors like Fraser, Taylor Lautner, Tom Cruise, etc. People who are more popular than they are good, not saying that Cruise is bad, just that he's really, really popular. Actual actors worry get hired for performances rendered more so than box-office draw. No amount of flops is going to hurt Steve Buscemi or Gary Oldman's career. It was never assumed that you'd make a hundred million just because Gary Oldman is in your movie.

>>81069433
You seem to know about this shit.

>>81069177
I just wanted to mention the guy who played gambit in one of the wolverine movies and that guy who goes to Mars.

He was cool as a footballer in Friday Night Lights.

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>>81069537

For a real case study in box-office draw, consider the movie Passengers.

JLaw's coming off that Hunger Games series, which brought a whole lot of people to the theater, and she won an Oscar. Chris Pratt was in Jurassic World and Guardians. Between the two of them, this movie had expectations through the roof. Two young stars with box-office draw? That's why the poster has just both of their faces. The whole selling point was "come see this movie for these people".

They both should be pretty scared right now. It cost like $110 million to make, but it's maxing out at around $99 million. It opened at #3, with like $14 million for the weekend. That means that either Chris Pratt or Jennifer Lawrence can't open a movie, or that one can and the other is so toxic that it discourages people from going. Either way, there's something very, very fishy going on.

A performance like that will hurt both of their careers a lot more than a Tom Hardy movie that nobody goes to see would hurt his. It was never assumed or claimed that Tom Hardy could open a movie, and he wouldn't ever get thrown in front of a $100+ million dollar movie with the expectation that you could market it as "that movie with Tom Hardy in it," the way that Passengers was "that Chris Pratt and JLaw movie."

>>81070191
But it was a shitty movie as well. Pratt has nothing to worry about with guardians 2 coming out.

>>81070191
that movie was heavily advertised around NYC, I saw it all over on busses and subways etc. But there was literally no context the movie. I don't watch tv or commercials, so I was shocked that this was a sci-fi movie. The print ads were not clear at all, so i thought it was a romantic drama. I'm sure the bland marketing had a lot to do with the flop.

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>>81070482

That's why I used it as an example. It's almost a raw test of the box-office draw of these actors. They weren't giving a whole lot of reasons to go see it. It was just being marketed as "That movie with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence." You usually only see that kind of marketing for people with known, proven box-office draw. Picrelated, case in point: Vanilla Sky won it's weekend with $25 million, with a total gross of over $200 million, unadjusted for inflation.

Actors and people with lots of box-office draw can do pretty much anything, because it's known that people will follow them. If Passengers had been a rousing success, then a whole lot of doors open. It's not like it underperforming is going to ruin their careers, but it's definitely a step back. Franchises will always welcome them back home, but it's more evidence that Jurassic World wasn't packing houses because people were coming to see Chris Pratt.

>>81070191
JLaw isn't a draw, period
Chris Pratt isn't a draw for the drama/romance genre

>>81070191
>"Theres a reason they woke up"

is there a lazier tagline then that? holy shit

>>81070482
>I'm sure the bland marketing had a lot to do with the flop.

the reality is all that matters is whether or not a movie is good. It can have the best cast in the universe, if it sucks no one will tell their friends to see it. It can have the best marketing in the universe, if it sucks no one will tell their friends to see it.

>>81070800
It's just as lazy as the whole movie.

>>81070191
JLaw is the poison. She's a player out one trick pony. Meanwhile Chris Pratt is a comedic talent who can do action movies or drama well.

JLaw should take a page from Kstew and Daniel Radcliffe and use her big teen franchise payoff to keep herself set for life and just do indie projects. She's not going to be popular outside of her big franchise series and she's going to set herself up for failure

>>81070914
Her ego is too large for that.

>>81070800

It's really pretty bad. The worst thing for the two of them isn't their fault at all. The marketing shows that the studio had an absolutely outrageous amount of confidence in the combination of Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence to make a hit. They figured that people were so hungry to see a movie with them in it, that they didn't need to keep making the sale much beyond them.

The script for Passengers was kicking around for years, and everybody loved it but nobody wanted to make it, because it's a pretty weird thing; it isn't going to be cheap; and it's a hard sell. It doesn't have franchise potential; it's just a one-off, fueled by star power. They spent $20 million on JLaw, and $12 million on Pratt, and all the movie proved was that they aren't worth it.

>>81070843

You're only kind of right. You usually get the opening weekend free, as word of mouth doesn't kick in and you can tap a lot of your audience. There're people who will never be interested in your movie; people who will never not go see your movie; and then there are people who are all kinds of persuadable. Some folks will never see Logan, no matter what anyone says. Some people will never skip an X-Men movie. And then there are all of these people who can be encouraged or discouraged depending on what they hear.

>>81071207
So if they had paid only a few million for lesser names do you think the movie could've broken even?

I think the only reason it even made 99 million was that people DID show up to see Jlaw and/or Pratt. Had the filmmakers not spent 32 million on them, with a "tough sell" story and no star power it may have actually lost more despite costing less.

>>81072038

They wouldn't have made the movie with lesser names. I wasn't joking that the script was kicking around forever and everyone loved it. Like 10 years of people loving it but never spending the kind of money to actually get it done, while meanwhile everyone loved it, thought about it, and the guy picked up jobs like writing Prometheus.

You'll probably recognize the name Amy Pascal, and yeah, this all comes down to her. She's the one who agreed to the salaries and actually got passed the point of no return. While it was kicking around, it didn't cost that much, but they still spent like $5 million before they even started to officially be making the movie, and with upfront salaries for the two stars and the director they're at like $39 million before the camera turns on. The expectation, and the only reason anyone actually got around to making Passengers after 10 years of thinking about it, was that they figured Chris Pratt and JLaw could sell the movie, that enough people would go see it for them and it would make a nice, tidy pile of money.

It was an utter failure, and they lost a lot of money. For comparison's sake when I say that JLaw's salary was ridiculous, it cost the same amount of money upfront just for JLaw that it cost to get Jonah Hill AND Channing Tatum to show up for 22 Jump Street. Not 21 Jump Street, but 22 Jump Street, the sequel, where pay raises kick in because franchise and all that.

But yeah, they spent 10 years not making the movie, and they should've kept waiting until they had a creative team that could really sell it or make it worth it. Like if Christopher Nolan really wanted to do it, and agreed to direct something guaranteed to be a smash hit in exchange. Instead, they paid through the nose to get a flop.

>>81072038

But yeah, you're right. I don't think anyone who doesn't really like at least one of them bothered to show up. To be fair, I don't think they expected the budget to end up where it did. Even with the $32 for the stars, they still had it figured as a small(ish) movie, that they could save a bunch on effects, and that the whole thing would be more like $80 million, instead of the $110 million that it was. At $80 million, a gross of $99 million isn't great, but psychologically it's a world of difference. And then you can factor in DVD, BluRay sales, streaming, etc. You can think that it wasn't a completely embarrassing disaster.

Instead, everybody knows the script, everybody knows they got huge deals to do the movie, and everybody knows that it lost a ton of money. Even if it was doomed for other reasons, it's not a good look when somebody puts a big bet on you and loses their shirt. $13 million and third place on the opening weekend? Didn't even make it's budget it ticket sales? Wew lad

>>81070914
>>81071025

If you want something to fuel your sense of schadenfreude, remember that the Passengers deals came right after JLaw made that big, nasty stink about how she got paid the least for American Hustle. She made an ugly point about how she was getting paid less because of sexism, Amy Pascal agrees to a $20 million payday, 40% more than the guy playing the lead, puts her name right on top of the movie, and it flops.

>>81070914
>or drama

This is incorrect.

>>81070191
>>81069433
Isn't Hollywood waking up to the fact that "Box-Office Draw" is a dying bit of industry-speak that's rapidly losing whatever relevance it once had?

>>81072903
Same goes for Jessica Chastain. She ran her mouth about her salary, then Miss Sloane bombed spectacularly.

Apparently she literally cried in the theater

>>81075194
>Hollywood
>waking up

Short answer is no. I don't know if you read the Sony leaks, but if you came away from that with any sense that the people in charge are objective, measured, and intelligent, you're wrong. Confirmation bias, a sense of hotness/streakiness, and past performance guarantees the future. There's bean counting, but creative decisions get worse when they're trying to be objective. Not to endlessly harp on Passengers, but:

It had floated around as a script that everybody loved, and a bunch of people took turns getting it partly set up, ready to go, but when it actually came down to it, it was a weird movie with some really questionable stuff in it, and there wasn't really any way to do it cheaply, so nobody was willing to do it. Some movie about a guy stuck on a spaceship who wakes up a girl, I mean, it's interesting, but whoa is that hard to sell, and for like $100 million? Too expensive. The only way it'd get done would be if somebody with real star power like Tom Cruise threw his weight into it, or if Robert Downey Jr agreed to play Iron Man five more times if they make it for him.

Enter Amy Pascal. She's got a vision for this piece, and it involves hiring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence at top fees, because they're hot actors one breath away from superstardom, and Academy Award winning JLaw and Jurassic World / Guardians Pratt is a slam-dunk. Space romance with the two hottest people in the universe according to Amy Pascal? This thing's going to be a fucking behemoth, and no amount of money is too much.

The idea to get those two in the movie predates the reasons they came up with to explain "objectively" why it's going to work. That's when box-office numbers, and age demographics come into play. There's also a lot of belief in streaks. If somebody wins an Oscar, or has a couple of big hits, they're hot, and they can get someone to do literally anything, whereas Brendan Fraser won't even get a meeting with the principals.

>>81075275
>Apparently she literally cried in the theater

I bet she did; that was a fucking disaster. That's another one of those scripts that everybody loved, but it didn't hang around that long because it was a much smaller production. The Shakespeare in Love guy directed it, and she probably had tons of points on the back-end, not to mention thinking that she'd better start practicing her Oscar speech. It didn't even cost $25 million, but it took a huge, embarrassing loss.

At least it wasn't pro gun, for her sake

>>81075194

Oh, but yeah, box-office draw still rules the coop, but people mostly think of it in terms of properties. Like the big capeshit stuff, slap Marvel on a movie starring a bunch of random people as random superheroes, and you'll make at least X amount of money. It's really hard to build up enough personal credibility, but if you've got it, you've got it. That's how some stuff turns from a maybe to a oh fuck yes, because some big name with a track record / box office draw attaches, and people start looking at it as less of a gamble and more of a guarantee.

That being said, it's all holistic. Jack Reacher 2 was a horrible, but it still did okay. The first Jack Reacher was written and directed by McQuarrie, Tom's buddy, who's doing Mission Impossible 5 and 6, while Jack Reacher 2 was written and directed by the Last Samurai guy whose biggest known movie in the last 10 years is probably Love and Other Drugs. It's not a big hit by any means; it didn't come close to $100 million domestic. That being said, Tom Cruise movies make shitloads of money for Paramount, and one misstep in between Mission Impossibles isn't going to keep them awake at night. I bet they'd give him another $60 million to make Jack Reacher 3 if he asked them, because even in second-rate crap he pulled in $60 million domestic and like $100 million overseas.

>>81070191
Well, you can also look at it this way, Its a genre that will never have mass appeal.

Its a sci fi love story, you get people who want sci fi action thinking its not worth it, and you have people who want a love story thinking what in the fuck do I want to watch a sci fi movie for. The fact it made 90 odd million domestically, (400 million world wide) is fucking amazing from the get go.

>>81076573
>The fact that it made 90 odd million domestically, (400 million world wide) is fucking amazing from the get go.

I think you're right that it's not a mass-appeal genre. The whole space romance thing, I mean, I actually liked the movie. They thought that Pratt and Lawrence were international superstars in waiting, or something. I'm not sure on their justification, but they thought this movie was going to be huge. Like, say, the Martian, another star-driven movie.

That cost about the same as Passengers, had the same basic "come see this person's movie" kind of marketing, except it made like $200 million domestic, and over $400 million overseas. Their $110 million dollar Matt Damon movie got them a tidy sum. Passengers, on the other hand, cost like $110 million, almost made $100 million domestically, and added another $200 (not $300) million overseas. Martian opened over $50 million; Passengers at like $15 million.

If you're doing a quick scratch work calculation, figure that half of the domestic and 1/3 of the foreign ends up as money in the bank. So The Martian returned $233 million, while Passengers got like $116 million.

And that's not counting advertising, which they did in a major way. They marketed the shit out of Passengers internationally, buying ads everywhere and sending Chris Pratt and JLaw to sell it in person. People here almost always way overestimate ad spending. I mean, Disney spends like $2 billion a year on advertising for everything that they do, so the whole "it's your production budget all over again" isn't usually the case for big movies. Passengers had a lot of advertising. It's still got DVD sales and stuff, but it's going to have to hit Force Awakens kind of numbers if it's going to even think about breaking even.

It's not saying that it's a bad movie, but it was a big, expensive mistake.

>>81075665
It is very cheaply doable. you would have to rely on practical sets and not cg with cg only being there when necessary.

Instead of a big space, you make it confined, and give them a holodeck like thing, you are now able to set it in space, have sets on earth or earth like environments, and when tension rises between them they leave the holodeck and you have a cramped claustrophobic depressing ship to fall back on.

There you go, you reduced costs of making it significantly with minor tweaks. kick out the woman who wanted 20 mill, and get someone who has chemistry or get someone who can act like they do. prat may have to go too because he isn't the one this roll would be suited for.

>>81077158
Oh no doubt its a dencet movie, but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BWWWQzTpNU

That is the trailer

this is the martians,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej3ioOneTy8

the martian has me sold on that trailer alone, whereas passengers SO does not.

Passengers also gives away nearly the entire movies interesting points in it, while the martian shows off comedy.

Passengers does not satisfy sci fi people, and love story people were completely turned off by the setting. While the martian is riding the back of a successful book that unless they fuck with it to much, people knew what they were getting, and it definitely satisfied the sci fi crowd. Not only that, you have an actor who is capable of driving an entire franchise and giving an amazing performance almost regardless of where you put them, be it drama, comedy, action. whereas passengers had 2 actors who while chris pratt is likely to be a person who can drive a movie/franchise on their own, needs something good to work with, however hunger games woman, only has a franchise that used her because she was competent, and was an interesting character in another franchise that did not need her.

and as for marketing, well, the trailers should show you how fucking bad their marketing was.

The trailer should have been
"My pod got damaged and forced me out of sleep. I spent a long time restless (proceed to show parts of the movie with him dicking around) till I saw her."
Explain their situation in exposition, a bit of happy moments
Then have another pod open telling them how fucked their situation really is.

And that's the trailer that would have sold the movie instead of 'we be the titanic in space' that it looks to be from the trailer.

>>81077219

Some guy whose claim to fame was directing some of early Game of Thrones was going to do it with before they changed their minds and Amy Pascal got involved, and they were going to do it cheaper, or at least wanted to. Sony was going to do it cheaper than they ended up doing. It was a sub $100 million production when Amy'd gotten it set. Those space walks and the gas ended up costing more than they'd planned.

I don't know, in a movie like this, the setting is a whole lot of the thing. Changing that in a big way by putting them in a claustrophobic, Alien kind of space ship / holograms of Earth would make it a totally different movie. Probably a good one, though. If I were in charge of a movie studio, I'd be much more likely to give $40 million to somebody like Darren Aronofsky or a younger Cronenberg and let him make me something than pay $110 million for a sleek JLaw and CPatt movie. With Aronofsky, I'd want to keep somebody like Chris Pratt if he'd be willing to work for points. It seems like enough of a cool part that somebody worth having would want to do it. Of course, we'll never get to see what somebody else could do with the material because Amy Pascal was an idiot with a hunch, I say from my vantage point knowing the result.

>>81069177
Ryan Reynolds has been in one movie this decade that wasn't a disappointment

>>81075194
>Robert Downey Jnr gets paid $50 million to play Iron Man in a movie that's not even about Iron Man
>"Box-Office Draws" are dying

>>81077659
You many change the movies overall feel sure, but I don't think it would be changed in a bad way.

An earth like hologram doesn't mean cityscape with lots of people, It could be a fantasy tree house in a jungle, or a picturesque mountain side cabin, possibly even a home in a snow capped mountain.

I would go more alien like, at first a nice pristine alien set, but after a year of his use, make it look a bit more lived in, Then with the two of them out, make it look even more lived in, with certain parts starting to fail, a bit of foreshadowing, and when they start the big fights over her knowing what he did, major parts are failing but neither notices as they are two wrapped up in their own shit and use to things like burned out lights from back on earth, it takes the third person coming out to tell them that none of what's been going on is normal.

As for space walks, haven't seen the movie, but honestly that could be done cheaply, by not focusing on the ship or space all to much, and more focusing on the characters interacting outside of the ship.

The fact of the matter is you would never get the love crowd in with sci fi, so I would likely cut a second one from her point of view that focuses more on the holodeck and romance aspects instead of the space, ending it in pratt teling her (an alternate, trailer only scene) I have to tell you something about why you are awake.

>>81077644

Hmm, that's odd. That's the official trailer, and I know I saw a bunch of previews for Passengers, but I'd never seen that one.

Amy Pascal at Sony had a totally different analysis of the situation. She thought JLaw was the real superstar, and that's why she has top billing and got a bunch more money. A lot of that was political, because of the Sony leaks and JLaw complaining in the press about how Sony was ripping her off because of sexism.

I think the real fatal flaw with Passengers's marketing was that they opted to sell it as a love story, keeping the twist that he chooses to wake her up a secret. Unfortunately, that got dozens of bloggers and websites complaining about rape culture, male privilege, and all kinds of stuff that muddied the water and made the whole thing sound like work.

>>81077738
the worst movie he was in was RIPD I believe, but outside of that no career ending bombs.

He is charismatic to the point that he can sell movies with him in them alone, on the same page, dude is attractive to the point women will go on him alone too.

>>81077938
god I fucking hate the time I live in. If I was 20 years older, I would be old enough to not give a shit about kids and their blogs, If I was 20 younger, by the time I grew up this social justice shit would probably be over and done with.

>>81069177
I hope he finds happiness doing something besides acting lads. Whats he up to anyway?

>>81077987

It's bad. It especially hit hard because it was coming right after JLaw's "it's just sad to see that Sony is still paying me less than people with dicks," and then when it came out that she was getting $20 million compared to Chris Pratt's $12, it was trumpeted as a giant victory for equality. Then all those bloggers actually heard what happened in the movie and turned on it.

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>>81077949

Nah, he does tons of movies, and lots of them don't make much money at all. He's just a decent working actor. Look at his IMDB page. Mississippi Grind from 2015? It didn't even make $200,000. And who saw Captive?

>>81078330
>Mississippi Grind
I assume an extremely low budget movie to begin with, as i never even heard about it till looking it up, a lot of these seem to be extremely low budget movies rather than big budget failures. He also seems to be a person who will work well under his pay grade if he likes the movie, or is willing to work things he doesn't want to do to get rolls he wants, I believe deadpool is an example of an end result.

>>81078464

Oh yeah, I'm not knocking him. I just think it means that having Ryan Reynolds in your movie doesn't guarantee much. It's not like all you have to do is put his face on a poster to sell even $10 million in tickets. He just kind of does his thing, and he's in successful movies and not successful ones. His IMDB page suggests that movies don't sell just because he's in them.

>>81078521
looking at the filmography, so few movies put him in a roll he was made for.

Van Wilder is a movie that pretty much shows off everything he can do. He has the comedic ability and timing, If you cast him in a roll that isn't comedic or sarcastic, you got him in the wrong roll. You have to play to his strengths, it seems every bad movie he was in, did not do that. He Is a person who is not an active detriment to any movie he is playing in, and I can tell you now, deadpool was sold because of him, comic book people may know and like the character, but he is literally the perfect person to play the roll, you get almost anyone else and I would guarantee it would have done less than half of what it did boxoffice and possibly just ended up being a failure. fucking hell, 700mill+ on a sub 60 mill budget...

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>>81070191
I think this is because ho they promoted it. I still have no idea what it's about.

It also just seems like they are trying to ride the coattails of Interstellar, Star Wars, Star Trek, and The Martian. Honestly just looks like they saw space movies are in and found Reddit's favorite actors and threw them on a poster.

It's just this time, the tricks didn't pay off

>mfw I see what those Jews are up to

>>81070482
anon, you are retarded
>passengers
>stars and lightbeam on the posters

>>81079050
>Star Wars
>Star Trek

no.
more like Gravity, Interstellar and The Martian.

if you wanna count star wars and star trek, then you should count Arrival and Independence day resurgence too.

>>81080792
Thanks for the (You)!

Here, have one for (You)rself!

>>81069177
It's hard to determine, some people like Johnny Depp should be considered box office poison, but he is only ever redeemed when he is in a Pirates of the Caribbean. Since the pirates movies I don't think I can recall any good Depp movie

>>81083151
edward scissorhands
whats eating gilbert grape

that's about it.

>>81084057
i didnt read your post thoroughly, ignore me.

>>81080792
(You)

>>81077644
>the martian has me sold on that trailer alone
>in your face neil armstrong
>i'm gonna have to reddit the shit out of this
Kill yourself.

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>>81075194
>when china exists

>>81077659

It seems like whenever Amy Pascal gets involved shit hits the fan.

The email exchange between Sony execs on the Jobs movie was just hilarious.

They couldn't help orgasming about the movie everywhere and anywhere. Oscars were going to magically appear for the movie and Leo was finally going to get his Oscar.

None of them realized that people in general don't view Jobs in a positive light and no one is interested in his biopic.

Yet another Sony flop because their execs have their heads up their ass.