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| Dreddful...star power meant unmasking Sly to exploit his appeal, rather obviously ruining the concept of the masked Dredd |
I've picked up on this theme a few times, and there is strong evidence to argue the point either way, but there clearly is some doubt emerging over the continuing veracity and vigour of the star system; movie marketing being centred on attaching and selling star names.
The now well-established dominance of the franchise system appears to offer an alternative - though its only Disney currently that seems to be banking on this, its tentpole productions shaving many $10s of millions from CGI-heavy budgets by casting young unknowns in key roles - AND tying them into multi-film contracts that will keep them on relatively low salaries, avoiding awkward renegotiations where actors have a strong hand. Look at the budgets for the first two Scream movies, or BJDiary, for examples of how actors can up their demands to stay in a franchise.
The Disney examples (Star Wars: Force Awakens and much of the MarvelCU, excepting Robert Downey Jr) shouldn't, i think, be seen as typical enough to dismiss the rule #1 of the film business, and Disney currently are an exception amongst the Big Six in taking this approach.
Some franchises/IP have sufficient pre-existing audiences to cope without stars. Harry Potter and the Hunger Games are good examples, so too Twilight (as horrible as those movies are, at least to non-teen, non-girl viewers like myself!).
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| Shocker: critics and audience hate this movie. |
Hollywood showed repeatedly before The Dark Knight kick-started the current MCU hegemony that shoving a big name into an iconic costume is often box office poison: Stallone's abysmal Judge Dredd is the classic example; whether his star brand or performance, or the script, were to blame, fans hated it and a general audience couldn't suspend belief for 90 minutes to really get into Rockie/Rambo as the meanest (robo)cop of them all.
