Tuesday, July 24, 2012

BEING AN ACTOR'S NO DIFFERENT THAN BEING A RUGBY PLAYER OR CONSTRUCTION WORKER, SAVE FOR THE FACT THAT MY TOOLS ARE THE MECHANISMS WHICH TRIGGER HUMAN EMOTION:  The NYMag folks did a lot of math (and employed not-much subjectivity) to determine who the 100 most valuable movie stars are in Hollywood these days, with some neat tools to re-weigh the criteria employed, and best of all it's not a slideshow.

(Too high: Daniel Radcliffe, Jonah Hill. Too low: Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway. Oddly missing: Samuel L. Jackson.)

8 comments:

  1. bella wilfer1:17 PM

    "Best of all it's not a slideshow" - hurrah!  Why do some sites insist on slideshow after slideshow?  They take longer to load and are a total pain to read on a mobile device...Glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way.  

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  2. Because each slide is a separate page view, and more pageviews generally equal a higher ad rate.

    As for the substance, it seems to me that they overstate some folks.  Did anyone really see Hunger Games or X-Men First Class primarily because Jennifer Lawrence was in them?  Yes, maybe some folks, but not most.

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  3. Jenn.2:45 PM

    I think that if you are using past performance to predict future success for young actors, blockbuster films can play both ways.  People are more likely to go to a Jennifer Lawrence film now that they've seen her in the Hunger Games and X-Men First Class than if they hadn't, but whether that will translate into similar successes in the future is another question.

    Daniel Radcliffe is an interesting question.  His post-HP movie (The Woman in Black) did better than expected, which probably can be attributed to him.  But we'll see if that keeps up.

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  4. isaac_spaceman4:26 PM

    Rise of the Planet of the Apes was huge because of the Draco Malfoy halo effect.

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  5. Joseph Finn6:17 PM

    Me in the case of Hunger Games, but I'm an outlier I realize.

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  6. Adam C.9:33 PM

    The Woman in Black had the added benefit of being pretty darn good, for what it was.  So, a good choice by Radcliffe, which maybe does bode well for his future.

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  7. J. Bowman9:48 PM

    It's why I saw Winter's Bone.

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  8. Radcliffe has a tricky needle to thread--wanting to grow with his audience, but not grow too fast.  He was a sell-out sensation in How To Succeed, which was safe for his young-skewing fanbase, but not in Equus, where he got better reviews, but wasn't safe for kids.  Pretty much any person with a YA fanbase is going to have that problem.  Emma Watson has thus far played it smart--Perks of Being A Wallflower and Bling Ring are logical choices--but if she goes to 50 Shades of Grey next, that's a bridge too far.

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