I think they're trying to kick off a He-Man Cinematic Universe like Marvel, so they wanted to come out of the gate with an expensive cornerstone to build on. On the upside, maybe they'll sell enough Castle Grayskull popcorn holders that it will have been all worthwhile.

As for Leto, he has been in several masterpieces including "Requiem For A Dream", "American Psycho", and "Fight Club". I actually liked the recent "Tron" that he starred in, although really, the visuals and music stole that show. "Blade Runner 2049" was also good.

The issue is that none of Jared Leto's films in recent memory have made any money. Like Morbius.

Leto is a self-proclaimed method actor, but I think his method is to try and channel Nicolas Cage, only weirder, which is pretty hard to do. More to the point, he is box office poison.

His lead turn as the Joker and Morbius had dismal results in several films. "House of Gucci" and "Haunted Mansion" were just bad. Though the last Tron and Blade Runner movies had some fans, they lost enough money to effectively end both franchises. He can't carry a film as the lead, that's obvious, but he still has a recognizable name. Trouble is, it's not bankable, and his track record as these comic villains is especially terrible. Who hires him for the same roles and expects a different result?

He initially got famous (over 30 years ago now) as the dreamy teen opposite Claire Danes on the TV series "My So-Called Life".
Who knows, maybe he's one of those Stonecutters.
They were even able to make Steve Guttenberg a star.

Sort of like Adam Driver. Why do people keep touting him as a big star ? What successful film has he been one of the leads in besides Star Wars ? And even thos films were a decade ago

Mandalorian didn't even make 10 million in its third weekend. Sinking rapidly, unfortunately.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Sort of like Adam Driver. Why do people keep touting him as a big star ?

They don't, his peers think he is a big star, not the general movie going public. One of his best roles was in the critically acclaimed "Marriage Story". I think the box office topped out at around $2M. Just try to sit through it.

There are actors and directors that are film festival darlings and award show winners. They live for each other's praise, and their art doesn't need to make money because it's art.

The acclaimed actors force themselves to do those nasty franchise Star Wars, Marvel and DC movies, to give them the opportunity to work at scale for those genius directors who make one non-linear movie with no discernable plot every decade. Then those actors and directors throw shade at the general public who just want to be entertained, with or without art.

I used to have favorite actors and saw lots of films in theatres. So far, I went to the movies twice this year, and it's not just because of the streaming option. There is no actor or director, young or old, that I follow anymore.

I can't think of any actors left who are so huge that they can carry a film just because they are the star. Tom Cruise is starting to fade, aside from Top Gun. It has been a few years since Brad Pitt was big. Folks like Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller are past their prime. Clint Eastwood has retired. Others like Harrison Ford have moved to TV. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro are out to pasture.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
I can't think of any actors left who are so huge that they can carry a film just because they are the star.

Yeah, that's a tough one. It reminds of a movie photo book I had long ago called "They Had Faces Then". The Hollywood movie stars of the 30s, 40s and 50s were instantly recognizable, at least at the time. Now someone born after the year 2000 probably couldn't name 5% of these once famous legends. So much for celluloid heroes living forever.

Christopher Nolan seems bigger than the talent at the moment. If you believe the press, there are so many people buying advance tickets for "The Odyssey" that they crashed the theatre website. "The Odyssey" is his 13th movie over a 29 year career as a director. Three of those films were the Batman Dark Knight trilogy. Of those that I saw, I only liked one, "Memento". It was made in 2000, was non-linear, and artsy as hell, but it was different. It was done cheaply and made money.

After that he was crowned a genius and 5 years later he got the Batman gig. I saw "The Prestige" and "Inception" and stopped watching his pictures in the movies. It wasn't that I couldn't understand them, I didn't like them.

In another era "The Odyssey" would go down as a "sword and sandals" second feature starring Steve Reeves as Hercules and maybe have effects by Ray Harryhausen, if it wasn't an Italian dubbed into English production.

With Nolan at the helm, it's elevated to an all-star cast of Oscar worthy actors and given his most expensive budget yet, estimated to cost around $250M. But it's still going to be "sword and sandals" and won't even have Harryhausen designed creatures. Instead, it will have actors who have to talk because they are artists and they will all need their own big dramatic scene amongst the battles, or else what are they getting paid for? As it was filmed in IMAX, it has to stay under three hours. So a lot has to be crammed in here.

"The Odyssey" is shaping up to be an event phenomenon like "Oppenheimer", only without "Barbie". I already saw "Troy" and "300" and quite a few of those Italian dubbed jobs. I'll pass on greatness again.

In that 'other era', 'The Odyssey' would probably only have managed to sign up Jim Danforth for the special effects. Ray Harryhausen stopped doing 'second feature' movies after his first main feature, 'The 7th Voyage of Sinbad', was a box office smash

Of course, I'm a bit biased on that topic

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin F:
In that 'other era', 'The Odyssey' would probably only have managed to sign up Jim Danforth for the special effects. Ray Harryhausen stopped doing 'second feature' movies after his first main feature, 'The 7th Voyage of Sinbad', was a box office smash

Of course, I'm a bit biased on that topic

I knew you would rise up at the mention of Harryhausen.

I don't know when you became an admirer of his work, but while he was the best in his day, his reputation only grew better with age. That's because his creations still look as good or better than any CGI, or blue screen, or AI, or whatever they are making now. "Mighty Joe Young" can stand up to anything in "Kong vs Godzilla" and it was done 77 years ago. I think I've seen all of Harryhausen's films at one time or another, but only the later ones in actual theatres. The rest on TV, probably "The Million Dollar Movie", if anyone here still remembers when the same movie played 5 nights a week. I was a mere infant myself.

Anyhow, his films made money on first run, but sci-fi and creature features were not block busters. The special effects were the star, and the cast was always made up of those second feature actors that appeared like a traveling group. It was only until "Clash of the Titans" that a bunch of first-rate British actors decided to do mainly cameos as Gods. So he did make first feature movies, but they mainly had second feature casts because the actors were an afterthought.

My own favorite Harryhausen creature comes from "20 Million Miles to Earth". I haven't seen it in quite a while, but Google tells me it was called the Ymir. I can't say that I ever remember hearing that name in the movie, but there it is now. I'll leave it to you Kevin to quote me the line.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
I can't think of any actors left who are so huge that they can carry a film just because they are the star. Tom Cruise is starting to fade, aside from Top Gun.

??? The last three Mission Impossible movies brought in over a half billion dollars each.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
I knew you would rise up at the mention of Harryhausen.

I don't know when you became an admirer of his work, but while he was the best in his day, his reputation only grew better with age. That's because his creations still look as good or better than any CGI, or blue screen, or AI, or whatever they are making now. "Mighty Joe Young" can stand up to anything in "Kong vs Godzilla" and it was done 77 years ago. I think I've seen all of Harryhausen's films at one time or another, but only the later ones in actual theatres. The rest on TV, probably "The Million Dollar Movie", if anyone here still remembers when the same movie played 5 nights a week. I was a mere infant myself.

Anyhow, his films made money on first run, but sci-fi and creature features were not block busters. The special effects were the star, and the cast was always made up of those second feature actors that appeared like a traveling group. It was only until "Clash of the Titans" that a bunch of first-rate British actors decided to do mainly cameos as Gods. So he did make first feature movies, but they mainly had second feature casts because the actors were an afterthought.

My own favorite Harryhausen creature comes from "20 Million Miles to Earth". I haven't seen it in quite a while, but Google tells me it was called the Ymir. I can't say that I ever remember hearing that name in the movie, but there it is now. I'll leave it to you Kevin to quote me the line.

Not too sure exactly when I became a great fan of his but my mum did tell me that I ran out of a showing of 7th Voyage of Sinbad when the dragon emerged from the cave around the mid 60s.

Surprisingly, he wasn't actually credited for his work on the original 'Mighty Joe Young' but he did do most of the gorilla animation himself under the direction of his mentor Willis O'Brien.

A fun detail about his final film, Clash of the Titans, was that a large chunk of the budget went on paying the A list actors. That left only the usual 'less than was really needed' funds for the special effects

You are quite correct about the creature in '20 Million Miles to Earth' being called the Ymir. As you say, the name was never used in the movie itself but all of Ray's creations had names.

My Ray Harryhausen collection includes a very limited edition bronze statuette of the Ymir. Even better, I got to show it to Ray at a book signing in Bradford where he very kindly autographed the base

The budgets for nearly all of Ray Harryhausen's films were under the control of producer Charles H. Scheer. He was notorious for being tight-fisted and never spent a penny more than absolutely necessary

I still read comics, but except for when I was a kid, I didn't really follow any particular character, but rather the artists and especially the writers of comics. I found that those capable of very good work could usually deliver more of the same regardless of character or even genre.

I've found that to be also largely true also for movies in that writers and directors are significantly more important to me than what actors may appear in them.

Here's a list of directors that I'll watch pretty much any movie they make (though, admittedly, not necessarily always at the cinema):

Spielberg
Ari Aster
Yorgos Lanthimos
Coens
Safdies
Tarantino
Denis Villenueve
Guillermo Del Toro
Paul Thomas Anderson
Alex Garner
Luca Guadagnino
Richard Linklater
David Fincher
Emerald Fennell
Robert Eggers
Christopher Nolan
Ti West
Osgood Perkins
Jordan Peele
Zach Cregger
Fede Alvarez
Coralie Fargeat
Steven Soderbergh
Ryan Coogler
Wes Anderson
Mike Flanagan
Darren Aronofsky
Nia DaCosta

Since all of them are still regularly producing new material, I'd say there are actually more good movies being made today than ever before, although, just like it's always been, the box office numbers may not currently support that idea. I guess it all depends on what your idea of "success" is. For me, the financials are pretty low on the list, though I recognize this is a business and filmmakers and actors alike both need to make money if they want to keep doing it.