Someone mentioned time machines earlier in this thread so:-
Go back to a few years post Tremors and think Kevin Bacon! Would have been absolutely perfect. And certainly better than anyone I can think of currently. Of course the trouble is that reality dictates that the "chosen one" will be who the studio think stands the best chance of getting people into the cinemas and, lets face it, most of their target audience will not be people who have even heard of Jack. So if they decide their best bet as Jack is Morgan Freeman then we will get Morgan Freeman. Who is, incidentally, a damned fine actor........ but maybe not quite good enough to pull it off!
Oh second choice from the past, Nicholas Cage in, say, 1998?
Go back to a few years post Tremors and think Kevin Bacon! Would have been absolutely perfect. And certainly better than anyone I can think of currently. Of course the trouble is that reality dictates that the "chosen one" will be who the studio think stands the best chance of getting people into the cinemas and, lets face it, most of their target audience will not be people who have even heard of Jack. So if they decide their best bet as Jack is Morgan Freeman then we will get Morgan Freeman. Who is, incidentally, a damned fine actor........ but maybe not quite good enough to pull it off!
Oh second choice from the past, Nicholas Cage in, say, 1998?
Peter Wrote:Someone mentioned time machines earlier in this thread so:-It often works that way -- big name actors bringing big ticket sales -- but certainly not always.
Go back to a few years post Tremors and think Kevin Bacon! Would have been absolutely perfect. And certainly better than anyone I can think of currently. Of course the trouble is that reality dictates that the "chosen one" will be who the studio think stands the best chance of getting people into the cinemas and, lets face it, most of their target audience will not be people who have even heard of Jack. So if they decide their best bet as Jack is Morgan Freeman then we will get Morgan Freeman. Who is, incidentally, a damned fine actor........ but maybe not quite good enough to pull it off!
Oh second choice from the past, Nicholas Cage in, say, 1998?
Great stories -- and great story-telling -- also works.
Before 1962, how many people had heard of Peter O'Toole? And no one outside of Egypt had ever heard of Michael Shaloub (AKA Omar Sharif.)
It was Sam Spiegal and David Lean's production of Lawrence of Arabia that made international stars of both O'Toole and Sharif. The only really (at the time) big-name stars in that movie were Alec Guinness and Anthony Quinn. And Guinness became a truly big-name international star when he portrayed Colonel Nicholson in Bridge on the River Kwai.
Similarly, Star Wars made Harrison Ford a big-name star. And before Star Wars, who had ever heard of Mark Hamill or Carrie Fisher?
Big-name stars may often make a movie, but just as often, good movies make big-name stars.
Ken V.