'Poseidon' fallout: When good actors make bad decisions
By Stephen Saito
Is Josh Lucas really the guy you want anchoring your $150 million-plus summer blockbuster
Hollywood seems to think so. For the second consecutive summer, a major studio has put its faith in Lucas, whose biggest claim to fame thus far has been �Sweet Home Alabama.� Warner Bros. bet that he and Kurt Russell and a lot of water would open �Poseidon� and they lost.
Studios put good actors like Lucas in bad films because they can often get them on the cheap. Or as the Wall Street Journal reported recently, because they now feel they can use visual effects to drive pictures. Their lone concession to the audience is casting familiar, if not fully embraced, faces. But why does a seemingly smart guy like Lucas accept?
Lucas is a fine actor who spent last summer garnering good reviews on Broadway in �The Glass Menagerie� while his big Sony would-be blockbuster �Stealth� was tanking. It's a familiar pattern.
After winning an Oscar, Ben Affleck took on a load of turkeys, none of which anybody saw after �Daredevil.� The actor is now behind the camera directing the Dennis Lehane adaptation �Gone Baby Gone� for Miramax and tending to his first child with wife Jennifer Garner. Certainly, that�s not a worst case scenario for the �Pearl Harbor� star. And like Orlando Bloom, it�s hard to fault an actor for wanting to work with top-tier directors (in Affleck�s case, John Woo on �Paycheck� and Martin Brest on �Gigli�).
But in an industry that finds few overnight sensations � only Steve Carell comes to mind in recent years -- it's not wise squander opportunities. Thus, it's imporatant to choose carefully.
Indie films are supposed to be where talent goes to take risks. They're also supposed to be the farm league, and to a certain extent they still are. Lucas himself was discovered in �The Deep End� and �You Can Count on Me.�
But in an era where the most anticipated indie films, like Fox Searchlight�s �Little Miss Sunshine� with Carell and Greg Kinnear, boast casts with seven figure quotes, why not take on a $150 million summer blockbuster if you can get one?
Because, if the film doesn't hit, it's a dead end. The town is littered with the corpses of once hot careers that cooled after one big flop.
Even hits can be problematic. If the film's not a quality project, it can lead to audience alienation. Look at Harrison Ford. The onetime best career in Hollywood has been hidden behind too many "Firewalls" of late.
So what's Lucas to do? Maybe he should take a page from another up-and-comer who found himself without a career when he should�ve been joining the $20 million club. After Vince Vaughn�s post-�Swingers� turns in �The Lost World� and �Return to Paradise,� the �Wedding Crashers� star found his niche again by taking supporting turns in �Old School� and �Starsky & Hutch.�
The result? Vaughn just landed a rumored $20 million to play Santa's degenerate brother for Warners, the same studio that's releasing "Poseidon." Now that's good casting.
Related Links
With Special Effects the Star, Hollywood Faces New Reality (WSJ, sub)Josh Lucas: I'm Happily Single (PEOPLE)
