October
18
Michael Clayton's Boxoffice and George Clooney's Stardom
Reading this thread on Hollywood Elsewhere responding to Kim Masters' Slate story on George Clooney and the boxoffice fate of Michael Clayton depressed me.
George Clooney is the model of a modern movie star. His accountant told him one day he never had to work another day in his life and he decided to use that "fuck you" money to make good movies. (Solaris and The Good German were both noble Steven Soderbergh failures.) I understand that Clooney signed off on Warner Bros.' stupid distribution decision to go wide with Michael Clayton on the second weekend.
What makes me crazy is that the studio had a well-reviewed, smart-house, classy movie that played well for the Academy and cost only $22 million. That's peanuts to a studio like Warners and there was no earthly reason to go wide! They could have let those per-screen averages play out slowly over time, kept the movie simmering in a successful mode, and widened gradually, keeping the Oscar race in mind. This is the kind of movie that builds and finds an audience. As long as it's successful, all well and good. But taint it with a 4th-place weekend and you've got the perception of damaged goods.
As to whether George Clooney is a star: if he gets paid $20 million, does he open the movie? Well, the guy doesn't get paid that much. He'd rather get his money in back-end gross. If he chooses to topline big commercial ensembles like the Oceans series or star opposite a giant wave, that's fine. If he makes overtly uncommercial movies that still do business, because they're Oscar-worthy, like Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck, that few other actors would have risked, that's fine too.
Look at someone like Harrison Ford, who's too scared to star in Traffic or Syriana. Is that who we want Clooney to be? There is value in a movie star like Jodie Foster (The Brave One aside, a violent action movie nobody wanted to see her in) or Clooney who represents quality. When the adult audience believes that their movies will be good, they will come--but not necessarily all at once on one weekend.
With all due respect to my colleague Brian Lowry, who correctly called Michael Clayton a tricky sell because the movie lacked car chases and the usual formulaic thrills and chills--that's exactly why the movie is so good, and why it's ranked at 82 on Metacritic.
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The guy is like Cary Grant. And his devotion to the art of cinema, in a decade that really needs it from power players, can only be described as noble. The pic ya got up there of him is a good representation of how Michael Clayton fans feel right now.
Posted by: Crow T Robot | October 18, 2007 at 10:28 AM
The studio really botched the release of Clayton without question. If there was a film that needed to go out slowly and build word of mouth it was this film. I hope Gone Baby Gone doesn't suffer the same fate. (Anyone knows how many theaters it's opening in this weekend?)
But to the other question is Clooney a "star"? The question is "iffy" to say the least. Though popular he is, he refuses for the most part to make the sort of star driven, mass appeal, heavily commerical films that all movie stars are required to make to maintain their "movie star" status. That will win him admirers among critics, but leave the audience out cold. I thought that Clayton would be the first real test of his movie star potential but now that's blown who knows what the answer is. The jury is still out.
Posted by: Sergio | October 18, 2007 at 11:38 AM
1) There's no doubt WB dropped the marketing and exhibition ball here. No reason in the world would make me think this movie needed to go wide. It's a niche flick and that's how it should have played in theaters.
2) I'm a HUGE fan of Clooney and his "Screw it, I'm having fun" attitude. He's made his fortune and no just seems to be taking roles that allow him to either stretch his acting chops or allow him to just fool around. Either one is fine with me. The fact that he's actually enjoying himself comes through on the screen and makes his films - either the noble failures you mention - a lot of fun to watch.
Posted by: Chris Thilk | October 18, 2007 at 12:00 PM
I went to see the movie, not knowing what to expect. I thuroughly enjoyed it, and I don't like many of Mr. Clooney's movies. In my opinion, he really hit the charcter home. And not much media has been given to Tom Wilkinson, who was a character actor at his best.
I loved the risk this new director took in starting the story towards the middle and looping the beginning and end back in. REally, really good.
As for marketing the film? I am no expert in the industry. But I tend to agree with several posts here that the type of people targeted to see this, are not going to jumpong over each otehr to get a seat at the theater. They have too many other things going on in their lives, and will go when they have the opportunity, not on the first weekend.
I hope it cathces momentum. I think that Mr. Clooney and the cast saw something in this writer/director (Obviously) and did take a hige risk, but the movie was worth it. Was it the best film I've seen all year? No! But the story was overall very good, the direction excellent and George and Tom's performances some of their best. The other cast members where just icing.
Posted by: k | October 18, 2007 at 12:43 PM
i just revisited solaris -- very fine viewing -- exactly the kind of movie a person sees at home (on a rainy day) when they have time to 'catch up'. hopefully mc will find an audience on disc, (but i think clayton's best chance will be from netflicks or online downloads).
Posted by: Alan | October 18, 2007 at 01:02 PM
I completely disagree...living in NYC everywhere I turned there was either Clooney or a reporter praising Michael Clayton. Rushed to see it and was disappointed - expected alot more. Will see again on dvd though because I feel that all the hype led to higher expectations. Clooney will rebound laughing all the way to the bank!!
Posted by: kj | October 18, 2007 at 02:27 PM
You are so very very wrong. This movie exploded it's first weekend because of the limited theatres, that's true, and die hard fans knew that it was a great work coming. Most of us fans knew it wasn't going to get any better than this when it comes to Clooney performances. It ran into trouble when aimed at the wider audiences not because of rushed expansion, but because the general public (the not-so die hard fans of Clooney's) were sickened by the cheap and all too uncredible publicity stunt he pulled by dragging his rags-to-riches, post-stripping, post-gold digging, post reality tv desperate camera hog onto the red carpet with her crutches in tow to bleed from peoples world wide sympathy and an "awesome wonder" as to whom his latest tramp-made out to be -"girlfriend" was which altogther trumped the promotion of the film itself. People couldn't be fooled and were rather turned-off than turned-on by Clooney's dual persona as his poor tastes in the female gender soured his own star power.
That's why the second weekend blew. Read the internet and figure it out. Not too tough if you know how to read.
Posted by: Bull crap | October 18, 2007 at 07:49 PM
Bull crap, the only persons who cares about who George Clooney can date are... his fans. But not all of them, but the ones who don't care about his films but only expect him for falling in love with them or spend all their time bashing his girlfriend whoever she can be. The ones who don't talk about any of his movies maybe because they don't watch them...
The internet forums you talk about are so full of trolls or people who pretend to be some people they obviously aren't (and you just have to read a few of their posts to know that. Sorry but some people who claimed working on PR and don't know one single thing about it or what kind of work Stan Rosenfield can do or not do, are not reliable... nor persons who pretend having an actor career but don't know who is a supporting actor on a movie...) that's so laughable.
So let people who enjoy watching films do that... and continue to believe everything that people you don't even know post on public forums can write. That's the reality but you can't figure out that with reading the forums that you seem to love so much.
Posted by: bees | October 19, 2007 at 12:37 AM
I have been a fan of Clooney since his early ER days and remember him from even earlier (I knew a lot of people who turned into ER because they liked him on Sisters, a
early 90s soap). He is a huge star, but he's not a mass-appeal star like Adam Sandler or Will Smith or Jim Carrey because he doesn't do mass-appeal projects as a general rule. His whole style and demeanor is that of a different era, which is why even his commercial projects pretty much require him to wear a suit at all possible times. This isn't a guy that would do well in the kind of stuff Sandler and Carrey and Stiller do, and why should we ask him to?
Unfortunately, that's the kind of stuff that brings in the dough right now. And it doesn't require stars. It just requires brainlessness. All of the other high-profile vehicles that opened this weekend bombed, while Clooney's movie pretty much held the same numbers, which is an encouraging sign: it shows that there is still of an audience for this movie and that its modest business so far doesn't bode
poorly for Clooney since he's turning in better humbers than the similiar types of films that are out there. It doesn't have to do with people not liking him or rejecting him because of his politics or his girlfriend. (I doubt most people know who she is. Or care. I don't think people avoided going to Reese Witherspoon's movie because she divorced her husband, either). They just want to see stupid movies. The few that want to see intelligent movies will still seek him out.
Posted by: Katherine | October 21, 2007 at 01:51 PM
Films, film star appeal, novels, etc. are all so subjective. The reasons people like, dislike, castigate or applaud films, its stars, or stories in books are unique and varied, but they do show up at the box office. People vote with their entertainment dollars.
George Clooney, while handsome and competent, seems over-rated with his self-deprecating persona, his man on a mission persona, his bored persona, or his angry persona being the primary expressions of his acting skills.
Posted by: Nicole | October 22, 2007 at 02:56 PM
Nicole
I could not agree more.
Goerge Clooney is very popular with the inside the Hollywood set but according to his starmeter on IMDB, the average movie viewer cannot stand him.
His starmeter after this boring movie release is down by -44%.
Posted by: ScottyDog | October 23, 2007 at 04:09 PM
Turns out Clloney worked on Syriana and Good Night, both with a group called Participant Productions which is tied to the Al Gore inconveneint turh movie team, Alliance for Climat4e Protection. I wonder if he knows hes being used by that Kissinger forieng policy group, or realizes that hes an actor an paid to be effective, not choose causes.
Great actor either way.
video -ANGELS IN AMERICA -Geoerge Clooney, Hiss, Dulles, and the CFR from
WelcomeToSatanica-Channel Z Zephnet.com
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7773396057834914116
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