Male stars are getting older in Hollywood
In an Observer article, published on May 28, 2023, Wendy Ide discusses why (male) film stars are getting older in Hollywood. She draws on an earlier Variety piece, which reports on the latest hottest titles presented at the recent Cannes Marche du Film. These include Cliffhanger, a reboot of a movie, which amazed the audience in 1993 featuring 76-year old Sylvester Stallone, Breakout with Arnold Schwarzenger (75) in the lead role and That’s Amore, a romcom featuring 69-year old John Travolta. According to Variety, production executives, sales agents and Hollywood insiders complain that there are fewer bankable talents from the newer generation. Ide claims that if the industry professionals believe this to be the case, despite the actors such as Margot Robbie, Timothee Chalet, Jennifer Lawrence and Paul Mescal, who prove to the contrary, this has been a symptom of a larger problem. Studios were keen to invest in what they consider to be safe bets, such as remakes of proven titles, franchises, filmic adaptations of video games. Essentially, anything which has a name recognition. And this translates to casting the same beloved but increasingly unsuited (older, male) actors for the (younger) roles which they play. Ide goes on to term the problem “creative cowardice” and explains it as when one gives the control of the arts to the accountants. This, in her view, has suffocated the supply of daring films and is a key reason that may have obstructed the development of a new generation of acting talents. Rather than today’s franchises, remakes and sequels, original stories helped “elevate acting talent to star status”, according to Ide. Sylvester Stallone in Rocky, Harrison Ford as Han Solo in Star Wars and Tom Cruise in Top Gun, Cocktail and Rain Man are examples which prove her point. If the (Hollywood) movie industry is serious about nurturing a new generation of acting talent, it may be a time that it leaves the marketing safe space behind and starts taking more creative risks, concludes Ide.
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