George Clooney's latest film, Leatherheads, which he stars in and directed, took in a disappointing $13.5 million at the box office. Clooney may be critically-lauded and admired for his directorial efforts and offbeat choices in his acting career, but he hasn't exactly been setting the box office on fire lately. For every Ocean's 11, 12, or 13, there is a Solaris, Intolerable Cruelty or Michael Clayton. Some of these are decent films and some are even great. Michael Clayton was an excellent film that, despite receiving several Academy Award nominations, including one for Clooney for Best Actor, stiffed at the box office. Clooney's past directorial efforts, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night and Good Luck, while critically acclaimed, were not huge box office hits.
Now that Leatherheads looks to be another stiff at the box office, many are questioning Clooney's ability to pull in an audience. His suave charisma and good looks work in films like Ocean's 11 and Out of Sight, and audiences respond well to those films, but when Clooney tries something a little more obscure, like Solaris, or more low-key, like Michael Clayton, audiences stay away.
As he nears 50, Clooney is at a point in his career where he can still enjoy leading-man status, like Denzel Washington, but can also settle into interesting character roles. However, unlike Washington, Clooney has always seemed a bit indifferent to being a big box-office star. His offbeat choices, including O Brother, Where Art Thou?, are not films that are designed to bring in huge throngs to the local mulitplex. He seems less engaged in films like Perfect Storm and Batman & Robin (well, who could blame him for the last one), which are designed for mass audiences, but he obviously does those types of films either for money or to reach a wider audience. However, I think he really does those films so he can do the smaller films that he enjoys making
Clooney reminds me a lot of Clint Eastwood, who would do Dirty Harry movies and movies co-starring apes to help finance his smaller films like Bird and White Hunter, Black Heart. But the difference between Clooney and Eastwood is that the films Eastwood stars in and/or directs are generally box office hits. Films like Unforgiven, Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, all did fairly well at the box office.
Clooney may be on a critical streak but his box office powers are diminishing. This leaves him in an interesting position; will he continue doing offbeat projects or will he do more mass-appeal films? And will studios continue hiring Clooney even though he hasn't had a major box office hit in the past few years aside from Ocean's 13?
I admire Clooney and his commitment to making different types of films. But he's working in Hollywood, where money talks. Clooney is going to need another hit soon if he wants to keep making his pet projects.
2 comments:
I also admire Clooney's choice to do a lot of offbeat smaller films. It's always nice to see a big star move away from the typical block busters to something that may show a greater range of acting skills. Unfortunately Clooney picks bad block buster scripts that do nothing for him and I find that in the smaller films that he does, his character really have no edge beyond what i expect from him. Plus with all the press that he gets for doing everything else except acting, i'm bored with him. So I can imagine that everyone is as well. I want to see Clooney do a role in a film that would seem unexpected and really draw me to come and pay to see him on the big screen.
That's true. He's a bit staid, isn't he? He could show more versatility by, perhaps, playing a villain.
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