Tom Nook
Member
Mad Max, The Revenant, The Dark Night Rises
LOL indeed
2 of the films are based on popular franchises and the other is because of Leo.
Mad Max, The Revenant, The Dark Night Rises
LOL indeed
An actor being in a few box office hits doesn't make them bankable stars. You don't become a bankable star unless you carry an original IP poorly reviewed movie like ScarJo did with Lucy.
Mad Max, The Revenant, The Dark Night Rises
LOL indeed
People saw all those movies purely because of Tom Hardy. Yup.
2 of the films are based on popular franchises and the other is because of Leo.
hahaha
ok dude
You realize change takes time? Women of color won't get a landslide of roles after this movie. Of course not. But the idea is to show audiences that women can be badasses in action movies as well.
Twenty years ago this movie wouldn't have happened. Absolutely no way would it ever be greenlit. We've come a long way where a major action release can star a woman and it's not instantly condemned.
In twenty more years, it might be commonly acceptable, which helps women of color. As more movies with female leads are successful, audiences become accustomed to it and the risk in making those movies becomes lower. This means more roles for all women, including women of color.
The issue here is not with ScarJo. It's not with the director. It's not with whoever did casting. It's not with the investors or the board of directors who would have rejected an Asian actress. All of these people are simply reacting to the problem in a rational way.
The problem is that people who watch movies in America (and Europe, to some extent) subconsciously are less likely to want to see a movie with an Asian female lead (or Asian male for that matter). People like to watch films where they can connect with the actors and actresses and America's Asian population is relatively tiny compared to other races. Obviously it's easier to connect to someone you can relate with better. This means race does play a factor. That's an innate part of humanity. You can't change it.
What you can do is minimize it. Go to a theater for a movie with a black lead and you're going to see a disproportionately higher amount of black people there. Same with Asian. Or Indian. Same with women. It's true for a white lead as well, though likely not nearly as much. White leads are more accepted. We know that. Minorities are ok with white leads because they've been so exposed to them.
This can work in inverse as well. It can work with gender too. But the process is slow. It takes a long time. You need to change the way an entire country thinks by slowly showing the audience that this different thing is ok. You can't force the issue. It will never work that way. The industry would collapse completely before it worked or (more likely) the people pushing it would go out of business and would be replaced by people without the same desire for social equality.
It takes time. This movie is a step in the right direction. But it's not going to take us to the finish line. That doesn't mean ScarJo is wrong. It's still a victory. It's just not the victory.
Mad Max, The Revenant, The Dark Night Rises
So the production team just randomly chose him for no reason to fit the roles?
Anyways I'm out, GAF dismissing comments like they know everything once again.
What on earth are you talking about? I'm not defending the casting at all. I've criticized it in this thread, and in many others. My posts in this thread have been an attempt to provide context and examination into why exactly these casting decisions get made. Not to justify them. To criticize a system requires an understanding of the why's and how's of said system.
"They should just cast an asian unknown" is an uninformed fantasy that doesn't understand the systemic issues at play, at all. THAT's the shit that won't change the state of diversity casting.
Tom Hardy had little if anything to do with The Revenant's success. That was a Dicaprio Led film. He had nothing to do with The Dark Night Rises.
Now Mad Max could be an indicator of consistent performance as a bankable lead in big budget films but he hasn't put himself out there for us to know one or not if he's a bankable star like bankable stars have done.
Tom Hardy was in the revenant?Mad Max, The Revenant, The Dark Night Rises
LOL indeed
lol that doesn't make them bankable. By your logic, Michelle Rodriguez and Zoe Saladana are some of the most bankable stars out there.So the production team just randomly chose him for no reason to fit the roles?
We all know why it's done, it's just that we don't find it an acceptable answer. And the solution very much is to hire asian actors, if not that then what is?
Tom Hardy had little if anything to do with The Revenant's success. That was a Dicaprio Led film. He had nothing to do with The Dark Night Rises.
Now Mad Max could be an indicator of consistent performance as a bankable lead in big budget films but he hasn't put himself out there for us to know one or not if he's a bankable star like bankable stars have done.
We all know why it's done, it's just that we don't find it an acceptable answer. And the solution very much is to hire asian actors, if not that then what is?
Mad Max, The Revenant, The Dark Night Rises
LOL indeed
It's on the studios to hire asian actors, but it's also on us as film fans to support asian actors so that studios take note. When a quality american film with an asian lead like Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter comes out. You should do your best to make it a priority to give that film your money.
Tom Hardy stars in a lot of films, many of which don't even get wide releases. I think that in itself is an indication of box office draw. He gets roles because he is a competent actor with a lot of diversity (he can do physical roles as well as roles that rely more on dialogue). No shame in that.
Clooney is not a bankable star . Tom Cruise, Will Smith, and Tom Hanks are noticeably missing.
Mad Max, The Revenant, The Dark Night Rises
LOL indeed
Yes you are right about Cruise and Hanks, DiCaprio and Lawrence
Going to disagree with Will Smith, he was at one point, but I don't think he is anymore.
I don't think Tom Hardy is yet.
So based on names so far:
Tom Hanks
Tom Cruise
Matt Damon
Denzel
Brad Pitt
and ScarJO
Jennifer Lawrence
Current Will Smith looks bad because he went from eight $100M+ domestic films in a row to having a bunch of underperformers in a row. MIB3 made a ton of money but the finance side of it was Sony Pictures being Sony Pictures. As such it is unfairly discounted. Everything else since Seven Pounds was low key, up until Suicide Squad blew up.
Regardless of who was in it an art house film like that was never going to do numbers. Even ScarJo's own art house film Under the skin didn't do well. Small scale films like this won't increase Asian visibility. Big budget films will.
This shouldn't be a "controversy" because the name "Mokoto" is an alias and she's a fucking cyborg. Her body isn't her original body.
Both are important. Scarlett Johansson is who she is today because of a small-scale film called Lost in Translation. Small scale films get actors parts in larger scale films. Jennifer Lawrence, Scarlett Johansson, Alicia Vikander. These successful white actresses we've talked about in this thread all got to where they are due to roles in smaller films. Support diversity in small films if you want diversity in big films. It's important to be vocal online, but you have to take action if you want to enact change.
So instead of bombas or super bombas, you want Omega bombas?
You wouldn't even recoup costs in China.
According to this, the name of Johansson's character in Ghost in the Shell is "Major Mira Killian": https://www.amazon.com/dp/1683830008/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Or you can expect both at the same time?
Your argument lies upon the premise that Hollywood is a meritocracy where we have decades of facts pointing to the contrary.
People really still think that Hollywood banks on big budget stars anymore? It's being proven more and more that good marketing and ability to sell your product matters way more than attaching a face too it.
"You need to see the new Godzilla film! Godzilla used Atomic Breath down the throat of another kaiju! It was fuckin' awesome!"
"Yeah, but who's in it? Bryan Cranston? Maybe."
- is a conversation that did not happen anywhere on this planet when the movie came out.
And??? the body she's in and the body the film adaptation is based on is that of an asian woman.
Star pieces are selling less and less, I mean shit look at that Brad Pitt saves China movie.
You think that shit will make its money back?
We don't know that. The race of her current, mass produced body is ambiguous. It's the same model as the puppet master's host body and looks exactly the same, except for having a different hair color.
NSFW
http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/gits29.png
Real conversations that DID happen however were along the lines of "Bryan Cranston should have been in the movie way longer", so there is that.
LOL Once again this nonsense about Will Smith. I can list you movies with almost all of those actors you named who have movies that not only bombed but didn't come close to recouping their production budgets.
Everything after Seven Pounds. He took a 3-year hiatus and came back.
2012 Men in Black 3 - Production Budget 215 million Box Office - $624 million
2013 After Earth - Critically panned. Production Budget 130 million $135 million Box Office - $243.8 million
2015 Concussion Production Budget - $35 million Box Office - $48.6 million
2016 Suicide Squad* Critically panned Production Budget - $175 million Box Office - $745.6 million
2016 Collateral Beauty** Critically panned Production Budget - $36 million Box Office - $82.7 million
*Obviously Will Smith's involvement in Suicide Squad didn't hurt it, but it' difficult to quantify how much he helped it given the almost guaranteed success of DC/Marvel big bugeted superhero films right now, so they're not great indicators of bankableness but is still part of a trend of Will's consistentsy.
**Movie is still in theaters in different parts of the world.
Will Smith is still one of Hollywood's most consistent performers and bankable stars even in awful movies.
Stars are not a guarantee of success. They're collateral for studio heads against stock holders in case a film bombs. We live in an era of unprecedented reliance on existing properties and nostalgia, as well as extreme media saturation where everything competes with our attention, and subsequently the cult of personality around huge stars back in the day is nearly impossible to attain and far less meaningful. We're never getting another Michael Jackson. Tom Cruise isn't America's darling anymore. People don't care when they can pass the time on YouTube.
Fact is, when people go to the theater they want to see stuff they either read or watched on TV forever ago communicated with a big Hollywood budget, or they just want to see cool-ass shit like explosions or dinosaurs or robots; give a damn about a "star." Like, who was a fan of Harry Potter but wasn't going to see it because some unknown British kids were headlining it? It's fucking Harry Potter, the biggest fictional book series of all time. Subsequently, Gerard Butler isn't magically saving these godawful Egyptian and Greek God films with his presence. Then you've got genres like horror. Pretty sure ScarJo would love to have been in a film with the box-office-to-budget ratio as Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity.
On top of that, it's not like stars are made in a lab and come out being automatically known by everyone. ScarJo was once a nobody. The only way to make a star is to initially cast them in a prominent role. To say there's no bankable stars of a particular race is an inherently self-sustaining problem and thus inherently racist- as well as an admittance of what minorities suspected that white people just lack the faculties to empathize with anyone who doesn't look like them- if you're not going to give the same initial chances to minority actors as you would white actors and actresses.
Ghost in the Shell is going to succeed or fail based upon the marketing, its writing, word of mouth, and in general whether or not people give a damn about the property in this day and age. ScarJo has no control over any of that.
I think this says a lot, when the most expensive and highest grossing film of all time stars a male australian actor who was entirely unknown before he was cast, yet somehow we don't have an Asian actress "big enough" to carry an adaptation of the most famous and influential Anime films of all time. The casting on this film just bugs the shit out of me.Meh, there's no Asian actresses bankable enough to head up a movie with that budget. In fact, there's less than a handful of any race.
You forgot Focus, which also did well for what it cost. I agree that he is well above average for bankability, even if he's not the biggest star on earth any more.
After Earth and Concussion were the only films that might have lost money in the list above. After Earth wasn't him in a lead role. Concussion was buried by people's love of Football in the US. Even the studio started to back off in their level of promotion when the NFL made a fuss. It was cheap though, so any losses would have been relatively minor.
I think that Smith being one of the few likeable parts of Suicide Squad helped the film. Even if only to give them some non-garbage dialogue delivery to stick in those trailers. I don't know if that film's performance will do much for him going forward as you say.
LOL Once again this nonsense about Will Smith. I can list you movies with almost all of those actors you named who have movies that not only bombed but didn't come close to recouping their production budgets.
Everything after Seven Pounds. He took a 3-year hiatus and came back.
2012 Men in Black 3 - Production Budget 215 million Box Office - $624 million
2013 After Earth - Critically panned. Production Budget 130 million $135 million Box Office - $243.8 million
2015 Concussion Production Budget - $35 million Box Office - $48.6 million
2016 Suicide Squad* Critically panned Production Budget - $175 million Box Office - $745.6 million
2016 Collateral Beauty** Critically panned Production Budget - $36 million Box Office - $82.7 million
*Obviously Will Smith's involvement in Suicide Squad didn't hurt it, but it' difficult to quantify how much he helped it given the almost guaranteed success of DC/Marvel big bugeted superhero films right now, so they're not great indicators of bankableness but is still part of a trend of Will's consistentsy.
**Movie is still in theaters in different parts of the world.
Will Smith is still one of Hollywood's most consistent performers and bankable stars even in awful movies.
Star pieces are selling less and less, I mean shit look at that Brad Pitt saves China movie.
Matt Damon sure is looking Brad Pitt these days.
Wow, I guess I just didn't realize with all the crappy movies he has been in his movies still do that ok. Seems like you are correct in that he is still bankable worldwide, even if not in the United States.
I rescind my opposition.
While I agree in general, I don't think you can fully discount Scarlett Johanssen's drawing power as a lead if the movie is a success and automatically assume the same would've occurred with an unknown.
I think this says a lot, when the most expensive and highest grossing film of all time stars a male australian actor who was entirely unknown before he was cast, yet somehow we don't have an Asian actress "big enough" to carry an adaptation of the most famous and influential Anime films of all time. The casting on this film just bugs the shit out of me.
Two steps foward for women.This feels like the new way of tearing down feminism. Instead of celebrating the little steps and then working for more, we're turning on the little steps and criticizing them for not being big enough. We're attacking the people trying to take small steps.
Good for Scarlett Johansson for talking about the struggles she's faced. I wouldn't blame her for taking a role that was offered to her and that most women never have a chance at, I would blame the studios who aren't making many female-lead action movies and who chose to deny the role to a minority woman. Instead of criticizing Scarlett Johansson and trying to silence her, we should be focusing on lifting up her and minority women.
that doesn't make her statements less hypocritical and self-serving