> People like Tom Holland and Timothee Chalomet just don't seem to cut it compared to the 80s and 90s stars.
Who is the next Tom Cruise? No one in Hollywood or British Film is like him. He is a relic from the early days of film, such as Burt Lancaster or Steve McQueen
If there ever is an example of Hollywood trying to force feed audiences actors who have little talent or range Chris Pratt is one of them. Nothing against the guy, but the guy has no acting range at all.
Ditto for the guy from the Office now in all those tom clancy type shows or movies.
Plus we're talking about the younger generation. The only actor that has exhibited the range and raw talent that could cover Joaquin Pheonix/Tom Cruise/Keanu Reeves roles is Ezra Miller.
Christian Bale proved he could do all of that if he gave a shit. Ezra Miller could too. If they gave a shit.
Chris Pratt's "short" career has more or less been Parks and Rec -> Guardians of the Galaxy -> Jurassic Park. I thought he was pretty great for the first two but the scale of jurassic world being generic trash has managed to completely undermine any interest I had in him. I'm not clear where he stands on public opinion.
I also think Office Jim being Jack Ryan is strange. But I don't think people care about the amazon shows. His news thing and production of a Quiet Place was interesting. People fucking love Office Jim if they could put him in something that was not action man.
I find it kind of hilarious to highlight keanu reeves as an actor with range, as someone who loves reeves movies good or bad. Or tom cruise for that matter. The titles that made most of the "big actors" big were not things showing range. It's shit like top gun. Actors showing range are not doing big movies because big movies mostly don't ask for range.
Young actors don't tend to have that much star power either. That comes after a career. I feel like I can't agree on your entire framework here. But I guess if we had to target actors under... 35 that people want to see I would say it's probably shifted a fair bit to women. Perhaps Margot Robbie. Anya Taylor Joy. Jenna Ortega. Emma Stone.
off picks for men: Michael B. Jordan largely for the Black community. Harry Styles perhaps.
>I find it kind of hilarious to highlight keanu reeves as an actor with range, as someone who loves reeves movies good or bad. Or tom cruise for that matter.
You misunderstood what I wrote. I said he could cover Phoenix/Tom Cruise/Keanu Reeves "roles", meaning Ezra Miller could play the characters they play if he wanted to, I wasn't comparing Miller's range to theirs.
I was comparing Miller's range to Christian Bale's, in the sense that Bale has proven he can cover those character ranges.
Have you got any Ezra Miller films you recommend? From what I've seen I don't rate him at all and his off screen antics make him sound like a complete tool. If you've got any recommendations of movies where you think he excels I wouldn't mind checking them out to see if they change my mind.
>Actors showing range are not doing big movies because big movies mostly don't ask for range.
They don't explicitly ask for it but I think it's a little more subtle than that.
Taking an example you gave, I don't think Michael B Jordan will ever reach the star power of peak Will Smith simply because I don't think he's as talented an actor frankly.
Willis in Die Hard, Smith in Independence Day, Cruise in Top Gun-- they all exhibit more depth to me than Jordan in Creed or the Rock in whatever.
> Willis in Die Hard, Smith in Independence Day, Cruise in Top Gun-- they all exhibit more depth to me than Jordan in Creed or the Rock in whatever.
Idk man I think you've got some seriously rose tinted glasses. Most everyone I know who was born after that time thinks Top Gun is a formulaic piece of trash. It's very hard for me to think of this film as something that gives an actor a good opportunity show off their acting talent. There are plenty of good films from the 90s but Top Gun was like a generic DC superhero spectacle film.
Die Hard holds up. Jeff Goldblum is enough to salvage independence day but its largely dropped from popular consciousness among young people.
He's not been in anything that I know of other than The Bear but from what I've seen of him in that, Jeremy Allen White has some massive potential. If he landed an action blockbuster and picked his projects carefully I could see him becoming the next big star. I think both his vibe and his looks are probably closer to Steve McQueen than Cruise though.
I'd also add Jodie Comer and Florence Pugh to your list of top tier females.
The issue is that all the modern actors have emerged from the tongue-in-cheek Marvel franchise or similar. Tom Cruise almost exclusively plays dramatic roles (the only comedic role I can think of is the one where he's in Harvey Weinstein-esque prosthetics for Tropic Thunder) and he picks his roles very carefully. He dedicates 100% of his life not just to the movie he's in but to the role and mystique of the movie star which is at complete odds with social media marketing and trying to be a relatable person to get the public to like you.
Compare Cruise with Chris Hemsworth who's probably the closest thing to a bankable action star we've got right now (The Rock doesn't count because he essentially isn't acting, but is just playing the Rock in every movie). Chris Hemsworth makes some good movies but he doesn't choose the directors and projects he works on carefully the way Cruise did with Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson etc. Hemsworth is also out there hawking his fitness app, he's doing comedic bit roles and he relies quite heavily on his physique in a way that's closer to Stallone and Arnie. Cruise doesn't do any of these things because he knows that the more you see behind the curtain the less mystique there is. Hemsworth or an actor like him might raise his net worth by creating and selling his own whiskey but his value as a movie star declines when he does it - it cheapens him and his work, which have now become a vehicle to sell things outside of the movie. In contrast, Tom Cruise cares, above all else, in being a movie star. He dedicates himself to it not just inside the movies, but with his entire life outside of it too.
She's since changed, but there was a good interview with Lady Gaga on Johnathan Ross' talk show just after her first album came out. She was sat on the sofa in one of her extravagant costumes and Ross was trying to get her to admit that she went home afterwards and stuck her jogging bottoms on and her takeout stained t shirts and just chilled like the rest of us. Obviously it's true - you'll even see her in her casual attire around the house in her documentary. But at this point in time, pre-social media, Gaga refused to cave. She didn't want her fans to associate her with that - she wanted to be an embodiment, a symbol, an archetype, whatever you want to call it, of the elevated, mysterious pop star. Because that is what feeds the fanatic energy - people want their heroes to be bigger than them, to be above the drudgery of normal life, because that is what inspires them to dream bigger themselves. Tom Cruise is basically the last actor in the lineage of the mysterious movie star, dating right back to the early days of Hollywood with Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and later, Clark Gable, Cary Grant etc where movies and moviemaking themselves were both novel, mysterious and glamorous.
Until Hollywood stops making every leading role an ironic tongue in cheek comedian and also stops with the relentless "we're just like you" YouTube video press machine, you won't get another Tom Cruise because Tom Cruise is the embodiment of the movie star archetype. Between the current crop of actors and the studios, none of them seem interested in going to the lengths necessary to craft the mystery, spectacle and otherness necessary for a movie star anymore.
Cruise basically single handedly getting Top Gun II made, and it actually turning into one of the best movies of the year, is what sold me on Cruise. He cares about making good movies. Top Gun being largely focused on tight acting and practical effects over CG is also a good indication of how people may feel about this ai stuff.
> tight acting and practical effects over CG is also a good indication of how people may feel about this ai stuff.
This is kind of what I was trying to get at with the word spectacle. When Tom Cruise base jumps off a motorcycle, he is literally putting his life on the line, solely for your entertainment. This is impressive, just as Buster Keatons' many death defying stunts were. When we go to the movies we want to be impressed. Nowadays, everything is CGI, nothing is practical and almost all of the danger, skill or challenge is removed. It's not impressive. It's not even that impressive from a technical artistic standpoint because the artists are relying on all manner of computer tools and now AI to do their job, whereas before the effects would depend solely on the skill of the artists and craftsman working on the production.
Watching a modern day movie is like turning up to an arena expecting to watch a boxing match between world class fighters and then discovering that you'll be watching two amateurs in sumo suits hitting each other with inflatable tubes. It might be entertaining for five minutes but it soon wears thin. There's no risk involved, there's not much skill, there's no consequences, there's no overcoming adversity. There's not much of anything.
AI has no skin in the game of life. The math and science behind these tools might be impressive but that doesn't stir emotions in us, the same way we don't really look at our lightbulbs or cars or computers and feel impressed. Technology is just tools and tools are mundane. We want to see real people using those tools and conquering difficult situations.
You've just explained the attention economy. I agree with you, and I think the people expecting to waltz into fields they previously had no experience with and use AI to produce "compelling" work are in for a rude surprise when they realize how competitive it already is and how much the people involved in these industries hate them.
Who is the next Tom Cruise? No one in Hollywood or British Film is like him. He is a relic from the early days of film, such as Burt Lancaster or Steve McQueen