Those actors had really good screen presence and charisma. That has alot to do with how the audience judge films. Colin Farrell has the screen presence of a table cloth and the charisma of a parking meter- Violated. Add that to the bad boy image he repeats in every movie and that tells you why he's not doing very well. As to why Colin was picked for Total Recall 2012? Thats probably due to Kurt Wimmer. He was hired to write the screen play for Total Recall 2012, and also wrote the screen play for anther movie Colin was in, The Recruit. He also wrote the screenplays for Salt and Ultra Violet, of which I have heard where very convoluted, and why the studio decided he needed to write a story about erased memories, is beyond me. Collin has had only 2 hit movies in the span of 8 years ( SWAT and Horrible Bosses) and thats being generous.No I think you are missing my point. When I see an Arnie, Tom Cruise or even a Connery movie, I dont see the character they are playing, all I see is them being 'them' not a character in particular, they are almost cliched and type cast. If you look at the Alec Guinness generation of actors, they 'became' those characters and you forgot about the actor same can be said of Harrison Ford, he is Indiana Jones and Han Solo, not just Harrison Ford. So for me Farrell is good enough, he will be invisible to me in the film as the actor, he will be the character. Its probably one of the reasons he was given the part, he's not directly in your face as a personality.
Leading Actor/ latest craze does have alot to do with box office take. It goes both ways, it can make or break a movie. For example ( and this is a stretch ), you don't hire Mr.Bean to play the lead villain in a horror suspense film. Batman Begins and Dark knight where very well casted, and a big reason why those movies where so successful. Cristian Bale and Heath Leadger where perfect choices for those films. I knew both films where going to be great from the start.I'm in agreement with Gen, and call me old fashioned, but box office hits is, are and will always be such a fickle thing. Generally when you look at a box office hit its usually because its the latest 'in thing' (craze) or the actor leading in the film is just popular at that moment, its such bull. I could give you half a dozen movies that in MY opinion wipe the floor with such high end FX movies like Avatar (that has no original story btw, or is based off Dances with wolves) either way its not original. Although the Dark Knight is a great film, I dont think its above Batman Begins in a lot of ways, I think because of Heath Ledgers departure in our world, that everyone and their nan went to see it because of him, I would have seen it anyway regardless but my thinking is that its popularity increase was down to the Ledger factor.
It was the advancement in emotion capture, and the 3D technology that really made the movie a hit. The story wasn't really the main focus. I could easily criticize the story, but it was casted very well, and that was another big reason for it's success, and if you know James Cameron, then you know he pushes the envelope on pretty much every thing he does. Which is another part of the reason why his movies are so successful. And yes avatar ushered in the 3D age of film making.Also when people bang on about avatar they dont actually realise that there isn't a damn thing in there that hasn't been seen before I can guarantee it, the factor for that film was it was sold purely on the improvement of the 3d Camera, to improve the viewing experience, which now in hindsight we all love to hate, but thanks to us viewers paying for the gimmick has now caused nearly all movies to get a 3d conversion - anyway.......thats another gripe story for another day LOL, so why is that film a hit???? I think its just the visual feast it gives, not a story. It bores me to tears, since owning it on Blu ray I still havent had the patience to watch it thru the first act LOL.
It is pretty amazing what the general movie watching audience likes and doesn't like.I was just looking at that box office list, I think the majority of the top ten should be made illegal LOL, in fact the top 50 need a good shuffle, how the hell some of those got green lit is a mystery to me. If you want a quality movie with good characters and 100% story, Im telling you you gotta see Real Steel....that was one movie that I did not expect from, yet that delivered the whole damn package, I was really surprised with that film.
I haven't seen Real Steel yet, but was always interested in watching it. It had a production budget of 110 million, but only made 85.4 million here in states, but it did phenomenal over seas with over 200 million, bringing it's world wide total to almost 300 million. Had it been released closer to the holiday season last year, it would have done better. I guess the studios were still unsure about it.
