How to Make a Valentine's Day Movie in 10 Steps or Less
1.) Say you’re Warner Bros. You’re trying to revamp your New Line ‘brand.’ You witness international success of your Valentine’s Day movie from last year, He’s Just Not That Into You, which grossed $93.9 million domestic and $84 million international. You realize that the film simply involved a vaguely pre-sold premise (a popular advice book) coupled with a large handful of male and female stars, all in supporting roles and thus (relatively) cheap. Also realize that the quasi-British quasi-prequel to He’s Just Not That Into You from Universal, entitled Love Actually, grossed $246 million internationally on a $40 million budget.
2.) Ah! So maybe New Line should have He’s Just Not That Into You and Love Actually mate! Only this time around, let’s ADD EVEN MORE STARS! Like an exponential amount of stars!
3.) How many stars? Would ten be too many? No? Okay, let’s try NINETEEN BIG NAME STARS.
4.) Get the woman who wrote The Prince and Me (and The Prince and Me 2: The Royal Wedding) and many episodes of Lifetime’s Army Wives to write the script, because that is exactly the filmic tradition that this movie should continue. Also get Pretty Woman director Garry Marshall, who, after a string of big flops (Georgia Rule, Raising Helen) is available for cheap. But you can still put “Director of Pretty Woman” next to his name on all of the promotional materials. SCORE.
5.) Make sure that that script involves each and every one of the nineteen stars (plus some otherwise cute little kids or hot also-rans) either falling in love with each other, proposing to one another, or falling in love with themselves for who they are (they might also start “dancing like no one is watching.”) Each plot line should be heteronormative and affirm our generalized understanding of love as the universal language.
6.) Ensure that each of your 19 stars hits a crucial demo. Get the teen audience with Taylor Swift, Taylor Lautner, and Emma Roberts (featured very, very prominently in the preview); get the 20/30 somethings with Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba, Ashton Kutcher, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, and Bradley Cooper. Get the amorphous middle-aged set with Julia Roberts and McSteamy AND McDreamy. Make sure you spread your appeal beyond the just-white audience (a point on which He’s Just Not Into You failed) through the inclusion of Jamie Foxx, Hector Elizondo, and Queen Latifah. Oh, and put Shirley MacLaine in there too! You need to make this movie simultaneously seem like a girls-sympathy movie (e.g. the type of movie that girls go see when they’re without a “valentine”) AND a date movie (for teens as much as for married couples). In other words, make sure it’s not too female-centric — or something that a guy would feel embarrassed walking out of.
7.) Create aesthetically pleasing interactive functions on the website that invite you to share your experience with love, as evidenced below. Co-mingle user-generated ‘love’ content with star-generated ‘love’ content, available via each star’s authenticated Twitter account.
(Oh look, mypersonalized make-out spot in Walla Walla! Just enter your zip code!)
Note the incorporation of the film’s stars’ Tweet “concerning love”
8.) Solicit incredible tie-up/product placement/endorsement deals with so many companies so as to thoroughly subsidize our own budget — not to mention ingratiate yourself with fans through association with the likes of “Warriors in Pink,” which manages to promote the film, Ford, the stars involved with the promotion, and, well, breast cancer awareness. (Ads for this are also all over the gossip weeklies).
Also make sure that all endorsement and tie-up deals are with companies that specifically target an audience of white middle-class women ages 20-50.
9.) CROSS-PLUG. Make sure one of your stars just happens to be the hottest universally-palatable music artist of the moment, Taylor Swift. Then make sure she records a song — to do with love — and pre-sell it on iTunes to build hype for the film and soundtrack. Then have that star sing that song on the Grammy’s (two weeks before the film’s release) and celebrate the fact that the single was the fastest-selling female single iTunes history.
10.) And if you haven’t made a perfect Valentine’s Day movie yet, why don’t you NAME YOUR MOVIE VALENTINE’S DAY.
(And you can watch the trailer here).
Now that you, too, can create your own Valentine’s Day Movie, I will addthat as transparent and potentially brilliant as this strategy might seem, it’s certainly been done before, most notably by Universal in the early 1970s with ‘star-fests’ The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, Airport, and Airport 1975, all of which were overflowing with old and new stars. However, those movies required the actors to interact with each other — making it necessary for them to be on set simultaneously. Genre revision and what Charles Ramirez-Berg has termed “the Tarantino effect” have made the splintered galaxy-style narrative format at home in both Love Actually and Valentine’s Day (not to mention Babel and Crash) not just popular, but conventional. And it’s cost effective: each star can come in for two or three days and shoot what will end up to be three or four vignettes for total screen time between 10-15 minutes.
Crucially, star value was under threat during the 1970s, just as it is today. As I’ve argued elsewhere on the blog (and has been reported by several other outlets) the studios are not only tightening their belts in general, but especially in the realm of star salaries, especially following the very public failures of star-studded film from last Spring and Summer. (Duplicity, State of Play, Year One, The Taking of Pelham 123) Even someone like Denzel is taking a pay cut in exchange for points off the film’s net, a common practice that can give a star a huge paycheck….but only if the movie is a hit. Which isn’t to say that stars aren’t still important — obviously, celebrity gossip is as successful as ever, and star faces ensure much larger international grosses — but that the studios have figured out, once again, that they don’t assure a hit movie. So they’re cutting salaries — and arranging things like Valentine’s Day, which uses stars, but only in very small doses.
I’ve been unable to find any budget info on the film (if you have it, let me know) but my guess would be that the top level stars were each paid anywhere from $200,000 - $500,000, and the second tier stars a little less. Remember: 15 minutes of screen time, people. 19 stars x approx. 250,000 = 4.75 million. That’s less than one big star. While it remains to be seen how the film will compete with Nicholas Sparks weepie Dear John (released the week before), my guess is that no matter how fractured or cliched the story, it will succeed. But what’s next year’s Valentine’s Day movie going to do, now that the only good name is taken?
What $258.8 Million Could Mean
What a $258.8 million dollar audience looks like
$258.8 million. That’s the worldwide 5-day gross for New Moon.
That’s $140.7 million domestic. The film also broke the All-Time Single Day and Friday Opening records, not to mention the Biggest 2-Day total.
It’s now the third biggest opening of all time — following only Spiderman 3 and The Dark Knight.
And it did all of this in NOVEMBER, when kids still have to go to school and the masses aren’t seeking the theater for heat relief. Crucially, the budget for New Moon = Just under $50 million. Add in $25 million for promotion, and you’ve already got a film (and franchise) firmly in the black.
The rhetoric flooding the film blogosphere is filled with words like “jaw-dropping,” “huge surprise,” and “phenomenal.” Nikki Finke and Variety both point out that not even the film’s distributor, Summit Entertainment, thought the film would open this big — estimates were for between $100-$110 million domestic, no small number itself. Why? Because it’s what is known as a “two quadrant” film (the four audience ‘quadrants’ = men under 25, men over 25, women under 25, women over 25. Most blockbusters are films that appeal to all four quadrants — see Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight, Titanic, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc.).
The audience is not only ‘two quadrant’ (apparently 80% female) but young. 50% of attendees were under 21. Variety sums it up best: “the female-fueled New Moon explodes the myth that you need an all-audience film to do that level of biz, or that fanboys hold all the power.”
So does that answer my question? Is that what $258.8 million could mean? That girls can power movies — especially when there’s a romance (and abstinence porn) involved?
Sorta. Because it could also mean much, much more.
*It could legitimize the female market.
After big openings for Sex and the City, The Proposal, and Julie and Julia, risk-adverse studios may begin to invest more earnestly (and consistently) in properties that cater specifically (and unabashedly) to the female market. Of course, the studios have long counterprogrammed with ‘girly’ fare, but the key word is counterprogram — they try to pick up the ‘dregs’ who aren’t flocking to the supposedly four-quadrant blockbuster released the same weekend. This weekend is actually a fascinating example of counterprogramming, as The Blind Side, starring Sandra Bullock, did surprisingly well — presumably picking up the anti-Twilight female audience and scattered males who had been convinced by the football-time ad campaign that sold the film as a football-oriented triumph-of-the-will.
*It could (and already has) opened the female market to misogynist and ageist critique.
This is the ugly underbelly to what might otherwise be viewed as a ‘girl power’ triumph. For as anyone familiar with the franchise knows, the text is not immune to criticism. The original text has been criticized for its conservative, anti-feminist views; the second film in particular has been subject to scathing reviews from most popular critics. I’ve seen denigrating, clearly misogynist critiques of the film, from both men and women, on a diverse set of blogs and Twitter feeds — many of which interpret the success of the film as the failure of America, reason to hate themselves, their family, their loved ones, the end of the world, etc. I realize that some of this quips are in jest, but they also interpret a mass movement of females — seeking out a specific type of pleasure — as nigh-apocalyptic. As if the success of Twilight somehow ushers in the end of good taste.
Such a critique is misogynistic not only because it demonstrates a clear case of cultural amnesia — if any success indicated the end of good taste, it was that of horror porn and boy-oriented Transformers — but also because it explicitly and unabashedly constructs female consumers as rabid, mindless, brainwashed schmucks. Whatever one thinks of Twilight (and I’m not saying that the text should be exempt from critique), we still need to recognize the fact that the audience is not monolithic, nor is it mindless. By reproducing those beliefs, we (as scholars, as film critics, as film bloggers and cultural critics more generally) extend the general subjugation of women’s pleasures, tastes, desires, etc. Indeed, such beliefs contribute to the ghettoization of female-oriented art and artistry in a broad sense — whether female-directed film (if you need a reminder that it’s tough for women in Hollywood, just check out A.O. Scott’s recollection of the most important films of the last decade. Not a female director to be found.)
I heed the argument that the success of Twilight might contribute to the marginalization of less hegemonic products (with less traditional interpretations). But I also want to underline the fact that many women — and not just feminist women like the ones with whom I attended the premiere — are engaging in negotiated readings of this text. Some are reading it as satire, some are rewriting the ending using fanfic. But as is the case with almost any text, audiences make the text meet them where they are — a 13-year-old girl might love the romance, another might identify with the plainness of Bella, others might crave the family dynamic of the Cullens, older women may crave the thrill of first romance, and others may just relish the chance to escape — either in the books or the films — and become absorbed by a text.
In other words, the females who attended New Moon got to be ‘fan-girls.’ Is there something threatening and wrong with that?
*It will lower the bar for the sequels.
This is a crucial and disheartening point. New Moon very clearly had higher production values than Twilight — the stunts are far less cheesy, there are CGI wolves, and they hired Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen to play the baddie vampires. They shot in Rome; they had all sorts of sweet helicopter and trick shots. The lighting was more even; the Native Americans’ wigs were less visible. Why, then, would the bar be lowered? Because Twilight is a superior film. There. I said it. I’m curious to know if I’m in the minority here, but I felt far less magic in the second film — no matter of CGI wolves could make up for the absence of Catherine Hardwicke, who helmed the first film. Hardwicke, who also directed the superb Thirteen, has a certain way with teen situations. The way she directed the scenes at the high school — and the deviations from the book, including the classic line “This dress makes my boobs look totally awesome” — absolutely made the film for me. I could gloss over the clunky vampire jumping from tree to tree — so long as I had the intimate moments between Bella and her dad, Bella and her awkward teenage friends.
Now that New Moon, with its streamlined narrative, has garnered such a substantially higher gross than the original, it’s only natural that the forthcoming films will heed its lessons. I’d love for the series to take a Harry Potter bent, exploring various color palettes, alterations in tone, and senses of burgeoning humor with each director. This seems unlikely. As Transformers 2, Spiderman 3, and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 have proven, a sequel, however bloated, however much it pales in comparison to the original, will do even better business. So why concern yourself with quality?
Stars in the making? I'm not so sure.
*It won’t necessarily make stars out of Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner.
This might seem counter-intuitive. They attract huge crowds! People put their faces on their t-shirts! But these actors have become so incredibly wed to their characters, it’ll take critical and financial success in non-Twilight roles to break away from their picture personalities as Bella, Edward, and Jacob, respectively.
My bet for non-Twilight success is firmly on K-Stew, whose forthcoming turn as Joan Jett in The Runaways seems poised to do at least moderately well. She’s already wrapped Welcome to the Rileys, a small production that should continue to bolster her cred as an actual actress. (She has to sigh and look scared a lot in the Twilight saga, but I do think the girl can act.)
RPattz might be doomed to Edward-style brooding, as exemplified by his role in Remember Me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Vg3fqIWGs&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
It stars Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnen, and that girl from Lost, but is it a hit? Middling? Fueled by Twilight fans? (They tried to make that work with RPattz as Salvador Dali this summer in Little Ashes, but I couldn’t even watch the preview (complete with Pattinson in Dali moustache) without laughing. Pattinson is scheduled for two additional films, Unbound Captives and Bel Ami, in pre-production — both with big names, if not big directors, attached. His future outside of Twilight will depend wholly upon the success of such non-vampiric roles.
As for Taylor Lautner, he’s already filmed a small part in the Love Actually-esque Valentine’s Day (opposite his supposed love Taylor Swift, no less). But other than Eclipse, he’s got nothing. Not even in pre-production. He’s the most wooden of the three, and he’ll have to secure another romantic turn — presumably in a teen-geared comedy/drama of some sort — in order to sustain his fan base. He’ll also have to sustain gossip, either through authenticating his relationship with the other Taylor, re-dating Disney star Selena Gomez, or creating new teen hand-holding buzz. Odds of success = slim. He may have great shoulder muscles, but so does Matthew McConaughey.
So what does $258.8 million mean? It means we have an opportunity to reconsider the way the industry works. Everytime a movie hits big — and especially when it outperforms expectations — we reach a similar landmark. A chance for people like me to challenge the idea that the way that Hollywood works is ‘natural,’ inevitable, or necessary. As director Kevin Smith tweeted following the release of the Friday numbers, “Tween girls can get shit DONE, man.” Indeed they can — and so can 30 and 40 something moms with their daughters, and 20-something women prefunking with white wine and flasks. And it’s a lesson we — and Hollywood — is still learning.
The New York Times Totally Stole My Blog Post!
….and other complaints. If you’re a long-time (read: two month) follower of the blog, you’ll recall a post from late June, entitled “A Star-Less Summer?” in which I contemplated the failure of recent star-headed films (Land of the Lost, Imagine That, Pelham 123) and the success of high concept. The rest of the summer season confirmed that prediction: as August draws to a close, the top seven grossers line-up as such:
| 1 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | P/DW | $397,470,858 | 4,293 | $108,966,307 | 4,234 | 6/24 | - |
| 2 | Up | BV | $288,510,371 | 3,886 | $68,108,790 | 3,766 | 5/29 | - |
| 3 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | WB | $287,705,000 | 4,455 | $77,835,727 | 4,325 | 7/15 | - |
| 4 | The Hangover | WB | $267,238,000 | 3,545 | $44,979,319 | 3,269 | 6/5 | - |
| 5 | Star Trek | Par. | $256,133,843 | 4,053 | $75,204,289 | 3,849 | 5/8 | - |
| 6 | Monsters Vs. Aliens | P/DW | $198,291,863 | 4,136 | $59,321,095 | 4,104 | 3/27 | - |
| 7 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | Fox | $191,646,521 | 4,102 | $41,690,382 | 4,099 | 7/1 |
(All gross figures taken from Boxofficemojo.com). With the success of District 9 (starless — the lead performer had never even appeared in a feature film) and lots of fingers crossed over Inglorious Basterds (which seems to have just fine), the press was ready to make some big assertions.
First Huge Claim: A-List stardom is dead.
The Times published a short piece, “A-List Stars Flailing at Box Office,” with large pictures of Denzel Washington, Will Farrell, and Julia Roberts telling us that they can no longer ensure an audience. Choice quotes include:
“The spring and summer box office has murdered megawatt stars like Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Eddie Murphy, John Travolta, Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell.”
““Imagine That,” starring Mr. Murphy, was such a disaster that Paramount Pictures had to take a write-down. Mr. Sandler? His “Funny People” limped out of the gate and then collapsed. Some of these may simply have not been very good, but an A-list star is supposed to overcome that.”
“This weekend, Mr. Pitt has an opportunity to stop the bleeding. His “Inglourious Basterds,” an R-rated Nazi thriller directed by Quentin Tarantino, arrived in theaters Friday. Harvey Weinstein and The Weinstein Company built the marketing campaign for the film almost entirely around Mr. Pitt.
And the actor may pull it off — kind of. Mr. Weinstein contends that Mr. Pitt’s drawing power is not remotely in question. “Brad Pitt is a super-superstar at the apex of his popularity, and he’s a large part of why people want to see this movie,” he said.”
I don’t disagree with those claims — and they’re certainly supported by the box-office grosses of big, starry films this summer. But I also think that it’s not that people no longer love stars . Stars can be just as ‘high concept’ as a film based on alien prawns in South Africa or toys from our childhood, as Justin Wyatt has made clear. What’s missing — and here’s where I’d like to revise my original post on the star-less summer — is quality. I’m not talking Oscar-bait quality. I’m talking quality genre fare, quality in scripts written to play up a given star’s persona, quality in marketing, editing, length. The Times does briefly gesture this way, explaining that “Talent agents argue that stars are not to blame, faulting script concepts that fail to translate to the screen, poor release dates, awkward marketing or ill-advised efforts by popular actors to stretch in new directions.”
As my friend Colin pointed out, it isn’t so much that audiences didn’t want to see stars, but that the star-headed movies just weren’t that good. I’m not saying that Transformers was ‘good’ — but there’s a reason that a tightly plotted rom-com like The Proposal beat out the rather horrendous The Ugly Truth. Both are star-vehicles, both are genre pics — but one is simply smarter, more enjoyable, funnier, better fit to the star’s persona, and with more chemistry than the other. That’s the reason it’s grossed $260 million international on a $40 million budget, whereas The Ugly Truth has pulled in just under $92 million on a budget of $38 million.
And as Kristen and Courtney reminded me, this very article — or very close variations on it — has been published every year. I’ve personally run across it several times during my research this summer — Neal Gabler predicting the demise of stardom and a reversion to the studio system following Paramount chairman Sumner Redstone’s public admonishment of Tom Cruise, the Times citing a different set of academics making the very same claims about the statistical proof that stars do not ensure movie hits, this article in the British press on the new reliance on untested talent.
But stars have NEVER ensured movie hits. NEVER. Cary Grant starred in just as many stinkers and middling films as successes. Marlene Dietrich, Garbo, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Joan Crawford — all were either labeled ‘box office poison’ or declared unable to carry a film at one point or another in the ’30s and ’40s. After early success, Brando couldn’t carry a film to save his life. Jimmy Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Andrews — all had huge hits and mammoth disasters. Julia Roberts may have had a streak of big films in the late ’90s, but are we forgetting the seven films she made after Sleeping with the Enemy — all of them stinkers? Tom Hanks in Bonfire of the Vanities? Joe Versus the Volcano? Last Action Hero? Billy Bathgate? Cutthroat Island? The Postman? Waterworld? Last Action Hero?
Just One of the Big Star Bombs of the Early 1990s
And the idea, as one article cites, that big stars are being passed over for untested talent — well, of course. How did the big stars become stars in the first place? Because a big star passed (or was passed over) and they got a shot — as in the case of Julia Roberts and her role in Pretty Woman, which every major female star in the business nixed. But the case of Twilight — which the critics have been holding up as an example of no-star filmmaking — is instructive. First, this is a teen movie, with a tremendously presold product. Second, they were limited in who they could cast: even if Summit had the money to pay stars (which it didn’t) who could they have cast? Zach Efron and Miley Cyrus? And for the Native American character? True, they’re refusing to grant Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner points off the gross, and they’ve hired some bigger names for the sequels (Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning, Bryce Howard). But Twilight, like any number of teen genre pics over the past 50 years, is not a star vehicle. It’s a concept vehicle, with a handsome vampire to fill the pre-sold concept of Edward. It’s not Robert Pattinson who girls are ga-ga over: it’s Edward, with Pattinson’s face attached. This is a key distinction. For big-star vehicles, it’s the other way around: Tom Cruise, with some character’s particular life attached; Julia Roberts, with some zany romance life attached. The STAR is the high concept, not the plot, or the vampire romance on which it is based.
Edward Cullen is the star — not Pattinson
I digress. Returning to my original point, people — whether those people are in the industry, in the press, or in the audience — somehow hold to this idea that big star = big hit. Dyer pointed out in 1977 that star presence could not, and never has, ensured a hit. The beauty of the studio system was that a dud didn’t sink a studio, or even a star — he was already slotted for at least three more a year, all of them with controlled budgets, and his star could and would be recovered. The dynamics of film financing have changed dramatically — and films now do ride on the shoulders of a single star.
But I think it’s unfair to blame the stars for this summer’s flops. Or perhaps our ‘blame’ is misguided: instead of saying that the stars are dead, or at least not viable, it should be that the stars — and the studios who finance their films — have failed to create pairings (and advertisement for those pairings) between content and star that will better insure success. Will Ferrell in a movie about time travel to a dinosaur world? Adam Sandler in a comedy with a very serious third act? And as for the soft success of Angels and Demons and Public Enemies, I can only say that the public’s interest in the Dan Brown series has seriously dampened (was The Da Vinci Code that memorable? Especially with Hanks’ hair?) and Public Enemies should have been a smaller, cheaper film.
Finally, Inglourious Basterds isn’t doing well because it stars Brad Pitt. Pitt’s face might be all over the posters, but that’s Weinstein’s doing. It’s a Tarantino film, plain and simple. That’s the ‘pre-sold’ quality — Pitt is just an added bonus.
Ultimately, I’m frustrated with the rehearsal of the same arguments at the end of each cycle, whether post-Oscars or end-of-summer. So long as studios continue to retrench with remakes, conservative remakes, and half-hearted attempts to recreate past success, the stars placed in those films as a means of bedazzlement will continue to fail as well. A star doesn’t make a good movie. A good movie, including help of a charismatic performance, will make or help sustain a star.
The Second Huge Claim: Twitter is Changing the Game
I’d been seeing a bunch of articles and blog posts detailing the ways in which Twitter sank Bruno and led to the huge second week drop-off for G.I. Joe. Anne Thompson pointed to this article in The Baltimore Sun, which claims
While word of mouth could always make or break a movie, it usually took days to affect the box office. But the rise of social networking tools like Twitter may be narrowing that time frame to mere hours. And that has Hollywood on edge.
This summer, movies such as “Bruno” and ” G.I. Joe” have had unexpected tumbles at the box office - just within their opening weekends - while “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” survived blistering critical reaction to become a blockbuster.
Box-office watchers say the dramatic swings may be caused by Twitter and other social networking sites that can blast instant raves - or pans - to hundreds of people just minutes after the credits roll.
Ad Age has also been keen to underline a correlation between Tweets and box office success — they’ve created a chart that tracks the number of Tweets, release dates, and success of the top five films. Their conclusion: the more Tweets, the better the performance. Hrm. Sort of. Alisa Perren directed me to David Poland’s posts here and here (scroll up from the comments), both of which do a pretty great job of debunking the myth of the Twitter-Success correlation.
Like Alisa, I see such reporting as a continuation of the hype over the Iran Twitter ‘Revolution’ — it’s a sexy topic, but it’s rather unfounded. As Chuck Tryon and others have discussed, taste ‘authority’ has certainly been shaken up in the years since the rise of the internet, online reviewers, and social media — fewer people look to major reviewers to determine the weekend’s film, and movies like Transformers are labeled ‘critic-proof.’ I definitely agree that ‘authority’ has been dispersed. But as communications scholars have studied for decades, people have always looked to culture ‘authorities’ — whether in their own families, friend groups, larger communities, or Facebook friend feed, Twitter feed, or alternative news source — for advice or direction on what to see. While I make it my business to research and know about most films released, including festival buzz, time in post-production, budget, problems, fanfare, etc. (and so do many people reading this blog) we are obviously in the minority. Which isn’t a critique of people who don’t read Variety and Nikkie Finke. We’re the weird ones. Most people rely on others — people like us, or people who are less scholarly film-buffs, or even just their son or daughter — to figure out what they’ll see or rent. Twitter supplies another source of such authority, and it also allows users to search to see what people outside of their friend group are saying, but it has by no means revolutionalized the way that word-of-mouth functions. Sleeper hits, whether Blair Witch Club, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or even Love Story, District 9, March of the Penguins, rely on strong word-on-mouth. These days, word-of-mouth includes digital-word-of-keyboard.
A piece of District 9′s Brilliant Marketing Campaign
But it’s also a matter of marketing, as District 9, Blair Witch, and Love Story - all films with brilliant marketing campagins — make abundantly clear. And here’s the wrap-around concluding point: no film can succeed simply because it has a star, strong social media and spoken word-of-mouth, a great script, a pre-sold property, or fantastic marketing/studio support, which includes a proper release date. Perhaps it needs to have four of the five, or at least three of the five. But when more than two are missing — as in the case of the big flops of the summer — who are we to blame? What kind of story do we write? Perhaps that’s the listlessness that led so many critics — including A.O. Scott and Ebert — to write vitriolic indictments of the industry and its offerings. I don’t entirely agree with their conclusions — but I understand the feelings of confusion, anger, and sadness.
Guest Post: Rebooting Meryl Streep - From Icon to Boffo
Today’s post comes courtesy of the very talented Courtney Brannon Donoghue, a fellow Ph.D. student in the RTF Department. While her research deals primarily with media industry, industry and stars are by no means exclusive, as my own work endeavors to make clear. I’m so excited to have her work on the blog (she even has footnotes!) — remember, if any of you would like to guest post, please feel free to contact me. I’d love to have your ideas on the blog.
The term “reboot” has come to signify a commercial strategy for reinventing/remaking/reviving content in Hollywood, whether it be a film franchise, comic book character, a television series or toy. While far from a new phenomenon, everywhere we look it seems “reboots” are all around us—this summer’s Star Trek, the Transformers sequel or even the CW’s recent remaking the series 90210 and Melrose Place. In an industry where “everything old is new again”, concepts are not the only material to be reinvented. What about rebooting a star? A star with a household name and a string of awards? This is the best way to situate the recent resurgence of Meryl Streep’s career. In what Independent columnist Jonathan Romney is calling the “Streep Effect”, the actress has had a busy and profitable couple of years with seven projects and three hits summers in a row.[1]
- The Devil Wears Prada (2007, dir. David Frankel); estimated $124.7M domestic gross / $326.5M worldwide
- Mamma Mia! (2008, Phyllida Lloyd); estimated $144 M domestic/$465.5 worldwide
- Julie & Julia (2009, Nora Ephron); btw August 7-19 estimated $45M domestic; not yet released worldwide
A couple of important things to mention about this these projects—they are all produced by major studios (Fox, Universal and Sony, respectively), the latter two by female directors and all targeting a broad female demographic. Each film is adapted from a complicated convergence of various pre-sold premises (bestselling book loosely based on Vogue editor Anna Wintour’; long running Broadway musical based on ABBA songs; blog/bestselling books based on Julia Child and her cooking). However, if we were to ask the old question of “whose pictures is this anyways?”, the answer is unabashedly Meryl. She is the top-billed star and the one whom is benefiting from the boffo.
The most interesting (and perhaps puzzling) aspect to many in the industry is how a line of mid-range budget female fare has transformed Streep in a consistent box office earner for the first time in decades. However, this recent popularity is only another refashioning of a career that spans more than three decades.
1970s/early ‘80s – After years on the stage, Meryl earns critical acclaim and her first Oscar nods and wins in projects such as The Deer Hunter (1978), Manhattan (1979), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie’s Choice (1982).
On a personal note, this is the first “Meryl” I experienced, watching these heart-wrenching characters on cable with my mom in the 1980s. As my mom remarked about how talented, capable and strong this woman was (only two years younger than her), I first learned how discourse surrounding Streep’s emotionally raw performance in Sophie’s Choice was different than the tone of another actress at that time, Dolly Parton. Notably, the marker of critical acclaim arrives early in Streep’s career and still shapes it today.
1980s – Through a variety of romantic and dramatic roles, most notably the commercial success of Out of Africa (1985), Meryl moved into leading roles along such “quality” actors such as Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson and Robert DeNiro. Her stardom seemingly reaches a popular high in her press coverage and awards, exemplified by her winning the People’s Choice Award for best actress six years in a row (1982-88). H
Meryl Streep on the cover of Rolling Stone, circa 1986
1990s – At this point, Streep reaches the industry’s dreaded “middle age” 40s+ and the roles began to slow down. Besides a few dark comedies (She-Devil, 1989 and Death Becomes Her, 1992), studio genre films (The River Wild, 1992) or period pieces (House of Spirits), none of which fare well critically or commercially. The highlight of the 1990s appears to be The Bridges of Madison County with Clint Eastwood, based on the bestselling novel. Note how drastically the roles changed from the ‘80s to the ‘90s.
2000 – 2007 – Despite a few smaller scale successes with The Hours (2002), Adaptation (2002) and Angels in America (2003), the majority of the projects Streep is involved are commercial flops, particularly the political dramas The Manchurian Candidate (2004), Lions for Lambs (2007) and Rendition (2007).
Only by moving away from her characteristic intensity and dramatic works into lighter, comedic roles does Streep once again reboot her star image. While it is not uncommon for long career trajectories to function cyclically (emulating the industry’s boom and bust mentality), Meryl’s ability to consistently work and still find success within Hollywood should not merely be understood in terms of the projects she is offered (note that she claims to only have turned down a couple of projects) or the commercial success that may or may not follow. What I think is important is how her carefully managed and constructed star persona fits into this narrative of her recent reboot. A couple of themes have shaped and continue to shape her discursively as a unique brand:
1) A “classically” trained actress widely associated with her method (not THE Method)
Having studied first as Vassar and later earning a MFA from the prestigious Yale Drama School, Streep spent years in New York Shakespeare Festival productions and on Broadway. This “classical” theater training allows her an aura of authenticity and legitimacy akin to what certain actors (many times British) receive through an ability to immerse themselves within a role. I feel this is an important part of her reputation and the meticulous method that is always associated with her (another note: Meryl repeatly claims to not practice method acting). Anne Hathaway and Shirley MacLaine have both told stories of how the strained or tense relationships between their characters onscreen often travel offscreen in order for Meryl to remain in character and pull the best performance out of the cast.
These industrial stories are part of what John Thornton Caldwell terms ‘publicly disclosed deep texts for explicit public consumption.’ In other words, Meryl will do whatever it takes to get the shot/scene.[2] Similar to my mother’s description of Meryl as early as the ‘80s, the actress’ status has branded her in a certain way. Her “method” is constructed similarly to male contemporaries (such as DeNiro), yet Meryl’s performances on- and off-screen status are often described with reverence, mutual esteem and without the craziness or extremes that follows other so-called creative geniuses in the industry (think about scandals and reputations associated with male actors from Christian Bale to Daniel Day-Lewis).
2) This “authenticity” leads into her industry status as an “icon”, “legend”, “role model”, etc.
Meryl is often listed among the rankings of classical Hollywood screen actresses such as Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn. I find this nostalgic take on her career and the current state of the star system fascinating. For example, the celebrity gossip blogger Lainey of laineygossip.com often writes about Meryl in contrast to the ungratefulness and vapid nature of today’s young starlets. In reference to her role as Sister Aloysius in Doubt (2008), Lainey states:
“That makes me worship her even more is her defence of Sister Aloysius. And how far she’s willing to go artistically in that defence. In a new interview with the Telegraph, Meryl describes a scene that she intensely lobbied to have cut – it ended up staying – because she felt it compromised her character’s conviction, or, more appropriately, her “doubt about what she has done,” arguing that if the film hinges on uncertainly, swaying it with what could be interpreted as conclusive evidence inevitably defeats the purpose.”
These are the observations of a studied and superior actor – so articulate, so f-cking smart, so unapologetic, so much more interesting than what we’ll be forced to live with for the next 30 years. In many ways, acting’s reputation in recent years has been raped by the new breed of dumbasses who call it an art without bothering to apply to it an artistic approach. Which is why more often than not when we hear them referring to themselves as “artists”, the most immediate response is to roll our eyes.
Like Audrina f-cking Partridge is now an actress.
But Meryl Streep…well Meryl Steep is an artist.”
Lainey perfectly captures the popular image of Streep as the timeless, classical Hollywood actress. She also differentiates her stardom from contemporary Hollywood through the protection of her personal life, including her role as a wife and mother. While Streep has been notoriously private about her 30-year marriage and compartmentalizes these different factions of her life, she can still play the game, as evidenced in recent giggling interviews with David Letterman and Steven Colbert. To tell the truth, I find her incredibly charming and engaging in these moments, yet it is all part of this approachability from a managed distance that has worked so well for her.
Streep’s honor of earning the most Oscar Nomination is often noted (15 and counting), yet she still remains the humble, gracious and grateful recipient of these acclaims. For instance, watch her exuberant and spontaneous 2009 SAG awards acceptance speech for her role in Doubt. Seriously, isn’t this a woman who loves what she does?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loYo6T-bYH8&hl=en&fs=1&]
(Annie’s note: Somewhat hilariously, there are no straight up clips of her acceptance speech — just fan vids. Lots of them. Who’d have thought. But this particular fan vid does a nice job of capturing the moment.)
Co-stars, filmmakers, crews and journalists describe her as a team player and someone who consistently gives 150%. Her relationship with actors has been presented as that of a mentor. Recently, working along side a younger generation of female co-stars—Anne Hathaway, Amy Adams, Amanda Seyfried and Emily Blunt—has allowed Meryl to adopt a new role as the mentor. Particularly, Robert Hosler’s Variety article (“Meryl Streep actor and coach: Legend mentors co-stars behind the scene”) last year solidifies this image through co-star anecdotes including Cher, Amy Adams and Liev Schreiber.[3] Notably, the past three summer films all include a younger female co-star in an effort by the studios to bring in a younger demo. Not only constructed as talented and committed to her craft as evident in her projects but she is willing pass this onto the next generation of little “Meryls” as seen extratextually in publicity photos, side by side at awards ceremonies and so on.
Streep with Adams (Left) and Breslin (Right)
Overall, Meryl Streep is an unusual example of stardom, whereas a number of her boomer female peers have been unable to keep working continually in film and/or moved to television for complex female roles. In order to see how this boffo streak unfolds, we should keep an eye out for Streep’s next two projects in a voice role in Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and Nancy Meyers’ It’s Complicated (2009) alongside Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin set for a Christmas release.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2igjYFojUo&hl=en&fs=1&]
Trailer for Fantastic Mr. Fox
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohPHbRkc_us&hl=en&fs=1&]
Trailer for It’s Complicated
The Meyers’ project is an interesting one, as she plays the romantic lead in a wide release studio picture for the first time in over 15 years. I predict the film will perform at least moderately well, considering the grosses of Meyers’ last two rom-coms, along with the current career reboot high for both Streep and Baldwin. Then again, it may skew to an older and smaller audience, similar to how Julie & Julia appears to be performing. Aside from her individual career, how could this reboot translate to changes within the industry as a whole? Perhaps the commercial success of Meryl may open up other roles and projects directed towards females of a certain age and (speaking for myself) benefit a female-oriented audience in desperate need of smarter and more engaging fare. For now, we can only happily anticipate more Meryl in the future and that sounds just fine to me.
[1] Jonathan Romney “The Streep Effect: Why economists love her” The Independent. 16 August 2009.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-streep-effect-1772859.html
[2] John Thornton Caldwell. “Cultures of Production: Studying Industry’s Deep Texts, Reflexive Rituals, and Managed Self-Disclosures” in Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method. eds. Jennifer Holt and Alissa Perren. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
[3] http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117983936.html?categoryid=1985&cs=1&query=Meryl+Streep
