There are many quantitative ways to measure the…hmmm, what’s the right word... brightness of a particular movie star. You can count Oscar nominations and box office receipts, magazine covers and Barbara Walters interviews.
But mostly it’s a feel thing. It’s this complex alchemy of critical acclaim, glamour, box office success – and perhaps most importantly, indelible screen moments. John Wayne framed in the door in The Searchers. Cary Grant chased by a plane in North by Northwest. Jack Nicholson poking his face through a crack in the door. Tom Hanks on a park bench.
Then there is George Clooney. Clooney seems to have inherited the mantle of the supernova movie star. One way you can tell he’s being groomed to replace Jack Nicholson as the Zeus of the Hollywood Olympus is the deference he is paid at awards events. He’s the guy that the emcee and the other actors give a shout out to from the stage, that the camera constantly seeks out. Last night on the Oscar red carpet, Regis Philbin gushed that it used to be "everyone in this town wanted to be Cary Grant, and now they want to be George Clooney”.
But mostly it’s a feel thing. It’s this complex alchemy of critical acclaim, glamour, box office success – and perhaps most importantly, indelible screen moments. John Wayne framed in the door in The Searchers. Cary Grant chased by a plane in North by Northwest. Jack Nicholson poking his face through a crack in the door. Tom Hanks on a park bench.
Then there is George Clooney. Clooney seems to have inherited the mantle of the supernova movie star. One way you can tell he’s being groomed to replace Jack Nicholson as the Zeus of the Hollywood Olympus is the deference he is paid at awards events. He’s the guy that the emcee and the other actors give a shout out to from the stage, that the camera constantly seeks out. Last night on the Oscar red carpet, Regis Philbin gushed that it used to be "everyone in this town wanted to be Cary Grant, and now they want to be George Clooney”.
And this week's Time magazine has a cover story titled "George Clooney: The Last Movie Star" in which the author says "this guy...really is a movie star. Maybe the only one we have now."
The only one we have. Wow. There's one teensy-weensy problem, though, that nobody seems to have noticed. One tiny little thing missing from the George Clooney is the World's Biggest Movie Star storyline...nobody watches his movies.
The only one we have. Wow. There's one teensy-weensy problem, though, that nobody seems to have noticed. One tiny little thing missing from the George Clooney is the World's Biggest Movie Star storyline...nobody watches his movies.
O Audience, Where Art Thou?
Since 1996’s From Dusk Till Dawn, George Clooney has been in 20 movies. Five of them have grossed more than $100m at the box office:
Ocean’s Eleven: $183m
The Perfect Storm: $182m
Ocean’s Twelve: $125m
Ocean’s Thirteen: $117m
Batman & Robin: $107m
But only The Perfect Storm, released during the Clinton Administration, can truly be called “a George Clooney movie” in the way that, say, Forrest Gump is “a Tom Hanks movie” and virtually every Tom Cruise movie is, in fact, “a Tom Cruise movie”.
Batman & Robin was the pathetic remnant of a once-proud franchise – plus top billing went to a true box office king, Arnold Schwarzenegger. O11 was a genuinely big hit (though it barely edged out Jurassic Park III at the box office) – but Ocean had an ensemble cast that featured a proven movie-carrying superstar, Julia Roberts, not to mention Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. O12 and O13 were lame sequels that fans of the first movie (including this one) were duped into seeing.
After those five “hits”, things get really bad.
The next top-grossing film in the Clooney filmography is Three Kings, which in 1999 did $60m at the box office. How good – or bad – is $60m? It was good enough for 39th place in 1999, just behind She’s All That and ahead of Bicentennial Man.
Mind you, this is one of George’s big hits. His next biggest hit, Syriana,took in a $51m, good enough for 56th place between Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Diary of a Mad Black Woman.
And so on. The nadir was 2006’s The Good German. Despite the presence of his Ocean director Steven Soderbergh, as well as Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and Spiderman Tobey Maguire, it did a grand total of $1.3m at the box office. How bad is that? I don’t know because the site I’m getting my data from, Box Office Mojo, only tracks 150 movies per year, and German didn’t come close to cracking the top 150. But let's put it this way: Gigli did six times better.
Feet of Clayton
Perhaps the surest sign that movie fans aren't particularly interested in George Clooney's movies is the failure of Michael Clayton. Clayton was lavishly reviewed – and not in a highbrow, “this movie is important but baffling” way (like Syriana), but as a compelling legal thriller with knockout performances. It was heavily-marketed. It was even released twice – in early October, when it bombed the first time, and again after the Oscar nominations came out.
It had everything it needed to succeed. Advertising support, critical acclaim, Oscar nominations for three cast members, and, you know, George Clooney, "the world’s only movie star". It should have been his Erin Brockovich ($125m). And yet, with $48m at the box office, it came in 55th place, in between two movies I’ve never heard of (This Christmas and Premonition).
Perhaps the surest sign that movie fans aren't particularly interested in George Clooney's movies is the failure of Michael Clayton. Clayton was lavishly reviewed – and not in a highbrow, “this movie is important but baffling” way (like Syriana), but as a compelling legal thriller with knockout performances. It was heavily-marketed. It was even released twice – in early October, when it bombed the first time, and again after the Oscar nominations came out.
It had everything it needed to succeed. Advertising support, critical acclaim, Oscar nominations for three cast members, and, you know, George Clooney, "the world’s only movie star". It should have been his Erin Brockovich ($125m). And yet, with $48m at the box office, it came in 55th place, in between two movies I’ve never heard of (This Christmas and Premonition).
What is A Movie Star?
Being a movie star isn't just about the box office - but the box office is a big part of the mix because it shows how you connect to audiences. As to artistic achievement, I think he’s a charming enough actor, albeit with the limited range one usually associates with handsome leading men. I thoroughly enjoyed some of his minor hits, especially Three Kings and the very underrated Out of Sight (the best movie made from an Elmore Leonard novel). And I appreciate some of the risky choices he makes.
Being a movie star isn't just about the box office - but the box office is a big part of the mix because it shows how you connect to audiences. As to artistic achievement, I think he’s a charming enough actor, albeit with the limited range one usually associates with handsome leading men. I thoroughly enjoyed some of his minor hits, especially Three Kings and the very underrated Out of Sight (the best movie made from an Elmore Leonard novel). And I appreciate some of the risky choices he makes.
But there is a huge disconnect between the praise he receives and the almost total indifference with which audiences greet his movies. Further, he has yet to make an iconic movie - think Tom Hanks with his 90's trifecta of Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, and Saving Private Ryan. Does Clooney have even one movie that has made an impression the way any of those three did? In fact, does Clooney have a cinematic moment to rival scenes from Apollo 13 (Houston, we have a problem.) or Castaway (Wilson the volleyball) or even Big (Hanks and Loggia dancing on the keyboard).
And how about Will Smith? Since 1996, he's made 13 movies:
Independence Day: $306m
I Am Legend: $255m
Men In Black: $251m
Men in Black2: $190m
Hitch: $179m
Pursuit of Happyness: $164m
Shark Tale: $161m
I, Robot: $145m
Bad Boys II: $139m
Wild Wild West: $114m
Enemy of the State: $112m
Ali: $58m
Bagger Vance: $31m
Wow. Only one flop (though it didn't flop as badly as Solaris or The Good German or Confessions of a Dangerous Mind or...). The only other sub-$100m movie, Ali, garnered him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. (He was also nominated for Happyness). Billions in box office. Multiple Oscar nominations. That, my friends, is a movie star.
There are many more actors who have a better mix of critical and commercial success. Russell Crowe. Denzel Washington. Even the much-maligned Tom Cruise had 7 straight $100m flicks before Lions for Lambs flopped. The 3 Mission Impossible films did about $100m more at the box office than the 3 Ocean films, and Cruise carried them by himself. Even Vanilla Sky did $100m.
Now What?
George Cloooney seems like a great guy to get a beer with, but he may be the most overrated person in the most overrated profession in the world. So what's next? The Ocean franchise has been sucked dry. His next movie, Leatherheads, well, you can check out the trailer and decide for yourself...
My guess is he'll remain popular, due to the interest in his personal life, his ridiculous good looks, and his masterful treatment of the press (read the Time story; the writer's got a serious man-crush on George). But I suspect it will be years before anybody but the readers of FreeTime and a few worried Hollywood executives will even notice that George Clooney is not the world's only movie star. In fact, he might not qualify as a movie star at all.
Update: I hate to pile on here but I had a thought. Clooney’s box office reputation, such as it is, depends almost entirely on the Ocean franchise. As I pointed our earlier, he hardly carried that franchise by himself, what with Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Andy Garcia, Catherine Zeta-Jones and others kicking in.
To make it worse, though, I compared Ocean to some other popular trilogies starring actual movie stars.
Harrison Ford/Indiana Jones trilogy: $618m
Tom Cruise/Mission trilogy: $529m
Matt Damon/Bourne trilogy: $524m
Clooney et al/Ocean trilogy: $425m
The Ocean trilogy is the only one of the bunch that declined in box office receipts each step of the way (Bourne is the only one to go up each step up of the way; MI went up, then down; Jones went down, then up).
And except for Sean Connery in the 3rd Indy flick, only the Ocean flicks relies on multiple movie stars.
Update: I hate to pile on here but I had a thought. Clooney’s box office reputation, such as it is, depends almost entirely on the Ocean franchise. As I pointed our earlier, he hardly carried that franchise by himself, what with Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Andy Garcia, Catherine Zeta-Jones and others kicking in.
To make it worse, though, I compared Ocean to some other popular trilogies starring actual movie stars.
Harrison Ford/Indiana Jones trilogy: $618m
Tom Cruise/Mission trilogy: $529m
Matt Damon/Bourne trilogy: $524m
Clooney et al/Ocean trilogy: $425m
The Ocean trilogy is the only one of the bunch that declined in box office receipts each step of the way (Bourne is the only one to go up each step up of the way; MI went up, then down; Jones went down, then up).
And except for Sean Connery in the 3rd Indy flick, only the Ocean flicks relies on multiple movie stars.
