It's an easy calculation: how many tickets will that star sell more than if they weren't in the movie? Based on that you'll get an amount of dollars you can pay out to that actor.
Which is likely true, but kinda weird to me. I do not have a tendency to select the movies I watch based on the actors. But I assume that isn’t true for most folks. I mean apparently.
I’d wager most people prefer movies with actors they know (and like). For example if Morgan Freeman is in a movie I’m already thinking there’s at least one decent actor in there, so the likelihood of me watching it goes up.
And of course you know what you get usually. If Jim Carrey is in a movie, duh, you get slapstick humor most of the time. Samuel L. Jackson will probably play a cool guy and drop a few f-bombs. Chris Pratt? Probably an action movie with lighthearted humor. And so on.
It’s not only about the actor, but each one has a kind of brand too. And if the actor is expensive the production quality is usually decent.
While I don't think it's as straight forward calculation as Norgur thinks, you're forgetting that star power has marketing reach beyond just name recognition on a poster. People want to hear from them. They give interviews, promote at events and give status to the movie: It will be featured more in media which in itself means that more people will hear about it (even if they don't choose the movie based on that name) which means they're more likely to consider seeing it at a later date as they recognize it.
The "A-list actor" isn't much of a thing nowadays - it's all much more about franchises - but star power used to be a real box office draw. People would go to see a film just because it was the new Johnny Depp film, for instance, regardless of the genre/plot/style/quality.
There aren't many actors these days who have that kind of draw. Two that I can think of are Ryan Reynolds and Tom Cruise - both actors where you have a fairly good idea of what you'll get from a film they're in, even when you know nothing about it.
Franchises have definitely taken over. People will go to the cinema to see a film because it's a Marvel film, a Star Wars film, etc, regardless of who directed it, who it stars, and the quality of the film. Sequels and cinematic universes sell tickets in the way familiar faces used to.
Definitely hasn’t gone away though, same concept for directors. Oppenheimer basically sold it’s tickets when it was announced just because it was Nolan, same thing for Tarrentino films
Does anybody else find the manic performances of Jim Carrey exhausting after five minutes on the theater screen and sound system?
The same thing happened to me since the eighties with Robin Williams.
And Adam Sandler. Their manic personas fit television better for me, Carrey played much better in the short bursts of In Living Color sketches, Sandler on SNL, and while I never really got into “Mork & Mindy”, Williams always killed it in talk show appearances.
Yet their more serious cinematic performances have made for compelling cinema that I do love.
Most audiences, however, seem to disagree with me. For example, I was one of the few who saw “Punch Drunk Love” in the theater back then, and was mesmerized by it.
Oh yeah. Imo him Carrey is scarily good because he really knows how to let himself go and embrace a role.
That being said, I think that 90s/2000s era of slapstick, whacky humor of the “hey we slayed our strict parents” era has definitely faded with time. I’d never do it for fear of ruining the nostalgia but I’m sure I would probably hate most of those movies now
Not sure if people who only watched Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber are aware of how long and storied his career is. He pulls off a great moron in that film, but he’s very strong as an actor. Terms of Endearment (1983) and The Newsroom (2012-2014) are his strongest work I think.
I re-watched this recently. Still holds up! Saw a YouTube video once that claimed the first draft of that movie had Jeff Daniel’s character be both Keanu’s partner and the bomber. That would have been a wild ride
From what I read Carey himself was the one who wanted that. He told the producers if it was two comedians they’d spend the entire time trying to one up each other
I’d recommend to see the fragments of the interview published in that channel. There was a full episode in the audio podcast, but it has since removed from the site. I’m happy I kept my complete copy 😊
Actors get paid based on their popularity, or said differently, you get paid shit if you are not known by millions. You can be the worst actor and get paid millions, while the best actor of the century gets paid minimum wage because noone knows about him.
An actor’s popularity is dependent on if they have a major role in popular movies, a large social media presence, or things like that. Many people don’t exactly care about quality in movies, or the actors ability to act.
There are some great actors we probably never heard of, because they are cast in minor roles, or in movies barely anyone knows about.
It's a little more complicated than that. Carrey was negotiating for Dumb and Dumber when Ace Ventura hit the box office. By the time the negotiations ended, there wasn't much money left for other actors. But that one movie was really all that he was known for at the time. So it was still a huge risk for a potential flash in the pan.
Daniels wanted to expand his career into comedy, but the producers didn't want him since he wasn't known for comedy. He had done a lot of movies by that point though and was well known, just not for comedy. So they threw him a lowball number to get rid of him. He wasn't suppose to take it.
It was all just really wild timing on Carrey's part and priorities not focused on money on Daniels' part.
Oh, interesting. Thank you for the info! I was going with a general knowledge that the more well known actors get paid more because of their popularity. Seema this one was a different case.
Chatgpt is in no way shape or form a reliable source of information. The Information provided may be out of date, out of context, or even wildly wrong and you have no way to verify this unless you do the research yourself.
All our current parodies of actual AI are able to do is be very convincing that what they say is true. They don’t know if it’s true, nor are they able to figure that out. They don’t care either. They are just chatbots with bells and whistles.
Do not use them as sources of information, if anything have them give you an answer that you can then use as a starting point to verify their truthfulness.
As much as I am a ChatGPT fan, you cannot trust it when it comes down to factual data unless you’re using a custom model with a specific knowledgebase.
You’re not missing much. I mean, it’s a 20 year gap in their careers. There’s a gag earlier in the film where Daniels visits Carrey in a nursing home because he’s fallen into a coma for 20 years and then Carrey finally “wakes up” and says it was all a gag. It’s almost like a nod to the Andy Kaufman conspiracy theory that he was faking his death as part of an elaborate real life bit.
Bob Iger makes 27 million dollars a year, not counting the passive money he makes by investing his excess salary.
You can literally pay all the writers and crew members what they’re asking, on every movie made in a year, with just the studio heads salaries … let alone the rest of the overpaid executives, board members, and investors.
Add comment