- Hello, friends.
With the upcoming Dune remake,
Denis Villeneuve is assembling one of the most
star-packed casts of the decade, maybe even the century.
Will the roster of A-list talent
be enough to bring people to the theaters, though?
This week on Heat Vision Breakdown,
we ask the question, does having an all-star cast
really translate to big screen success?
I want to be in Dune.
Denis never even asked me.
We're still far away from Dune's November 2020 release date,
but that hasn't stopped the film
from dominating the news on an almost daily basis,
with casting stories continuing to pour in.
Let me just try to name who we know so far.
(clears throat)
Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson,
Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista,
Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgard, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya,
Charlotte Rampling, and David Maschalchian, Dastmalchian.
Whew!
I did all of that with no help from any list anywhere.
You can have your phone back.
Villeneuve is known for his ambitious
critic and fan-pleasing movies.
Arrival earned a best pic nomination a few years back,
and Blade Runner 2049 is one of the most acclaimed
sci-fi movies of the past decade,
but it was also a big financial disappointment
which nobody really ever talks about.
Maybe you all should've spent more time buying tickets
and less time making Reddit threads about it.
Expectations are sky-high for Dune,
which, of course, is based on an acclaimed book
that everyone claims to have read to seem smart
but only like a quarter of those people
have actually read the book.
I have, I read it.
The story takes place on a desert planet
and centers on a teen boy with strange powers
who is the galaxy's only hope.
Sound familiar?
Well, that's because George Lucas was influenced
by Frank Herbert's book when he created Star Wars.
Not sure where he got the blue milk from, though.
Hollywood has had mixed reactions
when it comes to all-star casts in the past.
Sometimes they're seen as gimmicks.
I refer you to some of the final movies
of the late and legendary filmmaker Garry Marshall,
or other films like Ocean's 8 and the earlier Ocean's films.
While other times films full of A-list stars
are a chance for our greatest actors
to dig into meaty roles together,
like in Pulp Fiction or the Dark Knight.
Take, for instance, Heat, a movie that finally
got Al Pacino and Robert De Niro to square off,
and also managed to cram in peak Val Kilmer
and not quite as peak Jon Voight.
It balanced the screen time
for many of its stars beautifully,
giving us memorable moments of them together on screen
but also individual scenes for them
to really show off their talents individually.
That film was so good that Christopher Nolan
geeks out about it in the same way
that I geek out about his movies.
Another great example is The Departed,
Marty Scorsese, I call him Marty,
remake of the Chinese film Infernal Affairs
that brought every single A-list actor in the world
at the time together to settle once and for all
who does the best Boston accent.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson,
Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon, Martin Sheen,
Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson
all worked together to make a film
that ultimately won best picture.
Heck, that movie was so great that Mark Wahlberg
actually earned an Oscar nomination
for playing an aggressive, smart-mouthed guy from Boston.
Huge stretch, Mark.
Okay.
Fine, he was great in that movie, I admit it.
He was better in Boogie Nights, though,
and speaking of, that movie's cast
was also stacked with Burt Reynolds,
Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy,
Julianne Moore, tons of people.
However great Heat and The Departed are,
those examples are years old.
What?
Going by box office and critical analyses
over the past decade, the star-driven movie system
of the past, oh, nine decades is basically over.
Audiences largely go to see movies now
because they're based on familiar IP,
promised new worlds and narratives,
or have a connection to a larger fandom.
Or because Dwayne Johnson is in it.
I'll see anything with that guy.
There's also a major difference between a film
whose cast go on to become big stars
and a film that's made with already very established actors.
Films like Dazed and Confused and Black Hawk Down
are filled with familiar faces now,
but when they were released,
a lot of those stars were still largely unknowns.
Or, in the case of Josh Hartnett,
it's kind of gone the other direction.
Sorry.
Still better about not being cast in Dune.
Recent examples of films with stellar casts
that made little to no impact include 2011's Contagion,
which stars Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon,
Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, and Bryan Cranston.
2013's The Counselor, starring Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz,
Javier Bardem, Michael Fassbender, and Cameron Diaz.
Or even last year's Bad Time at the El Royale,
with Chris Hemsworth, Jeff Bridges,
Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson, and Nick Offerman.
Whew.
Rarely do big budget movies succeed
on the merit of their cast alone nowadays.
While the 90s were a goldmine for films
that had names like Tom Cruise, Will Smith, and Brad Pitt
attached to them, those stars now struggle to open films
that aren't already associated with a franchise.
The Mission Impossible series may still be earning bank,
but Cruise's star power couldn't turn Rock of Ages,
Oblivion, or even the excellent
Edge of Tomorrow into commercial hits.
Success stories from the past decade do exist, of course.
2010's The Expendables
and 2017's Murder on the Orient Express are prime examples.
Sylvester Stallone gathered every aging muscleman on Earth
besides maybe Lou Ferrigno for his all-star throwback
to big, dumb, explosion-y movies of the 80s and 90s,
bringing in stars like Jason Statham, Jet Li,
Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, and Mickey Rourke
to basically smoke cigars, rub oil on their biceps,
and blow up literally everything, plot be damned.
It resulted a new franchise
that spawned three separate films.
Murder on the Orient Express didn't have
much expectation weighing on it,
except from diehard Agatha Christie fans like my Aunt Mable.
Hi.
The cast consisted of a global collection
of both box office stars and award season staples
of the stage and screen, including Johnny Depp,
Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench,
Michelle Pfeiffer, and I guess Josh Gad, sure.
With so many names, Murder on the Orient Express
seemed to destined to go off the rails, but it didn't.
Well, I mean, it did technically
literally go off the tracks in the movie,
but metaphorically, it stayed on them.
Looking ahead, even before Dune opens,
Quentin Tarantino has Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
due out on July 26th this year.
With Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio,
Margot Robbie, and Al Pacino on the call sheet,
it feels like a throwback in the vein of The Departed,
a film that is both commercial and prestige prospects.
Presumably, the lesson here is that an all-star cast alone
doesn't make a watchable movie.
It's how each star's implemented
that results in a memorable film.
The novelty of seeing five to 10 very recognizable faces
on screen isn't enough to put butts in seats.
And I know you're going to bring up Infinity War,
but let me stop you right there,
because no one was lining up to see the actors in that film.
They were there to see the characters meet
for the first time on the big screen.
And if you disagree, then maybe you can come back to me
when The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle,
which stars Iron Man Robert Downey Jr.
and Spider-Man Tom Holland alongside
freaking Voldemort Ralph Fiennes and Zorro Antonio Banderas
and Selena Gomez and Octavia Spencer
and Emma Thompson and the man himself John Cena
makes over a billion dollars in the box office.
I'll be waiting.
So what do you guys think?
Are there any movies with all-star casts
that you feel do work, or don't work?
Let us know in the comments right down there.
Don't forget to subscribe and join us here
every Friday morning for new episodes
of Heat Vision Breakdown.
- Oh my God, did you hear?
- Why are you covered in sand?
- I got cast in Dune. - What?
- It's going to be amazing. - Come on!