Anna Banana would like to hear Venus by Bananarama (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kiefers) wrote in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} ohnotheydidnt,@ 2008-07-05 23:29:00 |
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Woll Smoth will still get jiggy with audiences, even if raping the box office with 'Hancock'
OTP: Woll Smoth/Tom Croz
His movies may tank. Expectations of his bankable gross may send bean-counters into a tizzy. But for all the ups and downs that have marked Will Smith's 18-year career, he's still jiggy with the masses. The man will never be called "box office poison"-- Hancock or not.
That may sound bold, if not flat-out arrogant, given Smith will only celebrate his 40th birthday this September and Hollywood is often quick to be fickle, but it's not like he hasn't faced down disastrous receipts before.
Wild Wild West cost Warner Bros. an estimated $160 million to produce and pulled in $113 million in domestic release, earning it the Razzie for worst film of the year in 1999 and bumping director Barry Sonnenfeld down to the B-list where he continues to linger, pumping out the likes of the poop-focused family film, RV, and low-profile TV serials such as Pushing Daisies.
Usually, it's the star who takes the heat for a flop -- not the director -- as witnessed by Tom Cruise's post-Oprah, post-Mission: Impossible III flameout. MI:III director J.J. Abrams escaped the wrath of studio execs and went on to direct episodes of The Office, produced Cloverfield and nabbed the enviable job of directing the next Star Trek feature.
Cruise, meanwhile, was given his walking papers and asked to leave his production home on the Paramount lot -- even though Mission made money and received favourable reviews.
So what makes Will Smith so special?
How did the Fresh Prince emerge as the millennium's most charismatic -- and apparently bankable star? (Despite weak reviews, Hancock lifted off to an impressive start Tuesday evening with more than $6.8 million in single-day receipts.)
By dissecting his career moves, cross-referencing them with those of his colleagues and keeping up with the gossip, gadflies and gawkers -- one can isolate the six degrees that separate Smith from the pack and give him what appears to be unsinkable star power, and earns him the title of Newsweek Magazine's "Most Powerful Man in Hollywood."
He's nice
Though it's generally hard to push past the wall of public relations hype that comes with celebrity persona, Will Smith appears to be one of the most liked people in the entertainment business. Indeed, when Smith picked up the actor of the year award at the 1999 ShoWest convention in Las Vegas, Sonnenfeld introduced his Men in Black, Wild Wild West star as "the nicest man on the planet" before jumping into his arms like a drunken toddler, cooing "I love this man! I love this man!"
You just don't hear words as nice as that in the asp pit of Hollywood ambition, but Smith elicits effusive praise for being a good guy just about everywhere he goes.
He's "normal"
Recently, Smith appeared to be edging closer to the cliff of kookiness when he was rumoured to be a Scientologist -- a clear liability in the pop culture column if Tom Cruise's battered public image is any indication. The rumour started as a result of a new school Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith plan to open this fall. According to news reports, the alternative school uses techniques developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and includes some staff members who are Scientologists. Smith and his wife assured fans they are not Scientologists.
They merely felt the method Hubbard espoused had some upsides -- notably, the emphasis on hands-on experience, thorough knowledge of a given subject before moving on, and not reading past unknown words.
"New Village Academy was born of a simple question," said Smith in a statement. "Is it possible to create an educational environment in which children have fun learning? Jada and I believe the answer is yes."
Subsequent reports have confirmed the school is secular and staff was hired from all religious and cultural backgrounds -- clearing Smith of Scientology scandal.
Before that, Smith ran into some sticky moments when he refused to kiss another man in Six Degrees of Separation, but the accusations of homophobia didn't stick around for long -- mostly because Smith agreed to "fake kiss" for the camera. For most actors, even a whiff of intolerance or religious fanaticism can sink a career, but Smith has been able to ride out the Hubbard and homophobic bumps with little effort, and even less bad ink.
He's good-looking
From the time he was the Fresh Prince, Will Smith has been jump-starting teen libidos thanks to his innate blend of sweetness and mischief. When he got the chance to flex muscle and his trigger finger in Bad Boys, Smith proved he also had a potent macho side to his persona -- which opened the door to his image as a leading man in big budget action movies such as Independence Day.
Now that Smith is nearing the 40-year milestone, his image has become far more sophisticated and sexy instead of merely cute -- and his post-Ali body is the stuff of Greek legend. Yet, where many men become less approachable as a result of chiseled features and good looks, Smith remains human and warm in the eyes of the masses. In a recent appearance on The Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert cooed over Smith's good looks -- describing his face as "perfectly symmetrical" -- and asked Smith if there was a secret behind his universal appeal. In response, Smith pulled out his ears -- suggesting the source of his humanity lay in the degree of separation between his cranium and cartilaginous ear pavilions.
He's race transcendent
Thanks to Smith's universal appeal, the very term "race-transcendent" already sounds a bit dated, but as one of the first African-American actors to earn in excess of $20 million per picture (alongside Denzel Washington) and bear big-budget tentpoles on his broad shoulders to earn boffo receipts, Smith has been able to crush existing Tinseltown barriers and preconceptions about audience identification.
Some academics have suggested Smith's cross-racial appeal stems from a lack of overtly sexual roles, which reduces the so-called "white male threat" of emasculation and makes him "less scary" to Middle America.
It's a familiar argument, and one that used to resonate more in the late '60s, when the raw charisma and sex appeal of Sidney Poitier was purposefully muted in order to keep things "safe." Smith's ability to rise above race probably has more to do with his career decisions, and the fact he makes movies that are not targeted at one market niche over another, unlike his Bad Boys co-star Martin Lawrence.
Source
OTP: Woll Smoth/Tom Croz
His movies may tank. Expectations of his bankable gross may send bean-counters into a tizzy. But for all the ups and downs that have marked Will Smith's 18-year career, he's still jiggy with the masses. The man will never be called "box office poison"-- Hancock or not.
That may sound bold, if not flat-out arrogant, given Smith will only celebrate his 40th birthday this September and Hollywood is often quick to be fickle, but it's not like he hasn't faced down disastrous receipts before.
Wild Wild West cost Warner Bros. an estimated $160 million to produce and pulled in $113 million in domestic release, earning it the Razzie for worst film of the year in 1999 and bumping director Barry Sonnenfeld down to the B-list where he continues to linger, pumping out the likes of the poop-focused family film, RV, and low-profile TV serials such as Pushing Daisies.
Usually, it's the star who takes the heat for a flop -- not the director -- as witnessed by Tom Cruise's post-Oprah, post-Mission: Impossible III flameout. MI:III director J.J. Abrams escaped the wrath of studio execs and went on to direct episodes of The Office, produced Cloverfield and nabbed the enviable job of directing the next Star Trek feature.
Cruise, meanwhile, was given his walking papers and asked to leave his production home on the Paramount lot -- even though Mission made money and received favourable reviews.
So what makes Will Smith so special?
How did the Fresh Prince emerge as the millennium's most charismatic -- and apparently bankable star? (Despite weak reviews, Hancock lifted off to an impressive start Tuesday evening with more than $6.8 million in single-day receipts.)
By dissecting his career moves, cross-referencing them with those of his colleagues and keeping up with the gossip, gadflies and gawkers -- one can isolate the six degrees that separate Smith from the pack and give him what appears to be unsinkable star power, and earns him the title of Newsweek Magazine's "Most Powerful Man in Hollywood."
He's nice
Though it's generally hard to push past the wall of public relations hype that comes with celebrity persona, Will Smith appears to be one of the most liked people in the entertainment business. Indeed, when Smith picked up the actor of the year award at the 1999 ShoWest convention in Las Vegas, Sonnenfeld introduced his Men in Black, Wild Wild West star as "the nicest man on the planet" before jumping into his arms like a drunken toddler, cooing "I love this man! I love this man!"
You just don't hear words as nice as that in the asp pit of Hollywood ambition, but Smith elicits effusive praise for being a good guy just about everywhere he goes.
He's "normal"
Recently, Smith appeared to be edging closer to the cliff of kookiness when he was rumoured to be a Scientologist -- a clear liability in the pop culture column if Tom Cruise's battered public image is any indication. The rumour started as a result of a new school Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith plan to open this fall. According to news reports, the alternative school uses techniques developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and includes some staff members who are Scientologists. Smith and his wife assured fans they are not Scientologists.
They merely felt the method Hubbard espoused had some upsides -- notably, the emphasis on hands-on experience, thorough knowledge of a given subject before moving on, and not reading past unknown words.
"New Village Academy was born of a simple question," said Smith in a statement. "Is it possible to create an educational environment in which children have fun learning? Jada and I believe the answer is yes."
Subsequent reports have confirmed the school is secular and staff was hired from all religious and cultural backgrounds -- clearing Smith of Scientology scandal.
Before that, Smith ran into some sticky moments when he refused to kiss another man in Six Degrees of Separation, but the accusations of homophobia didn't stick around for long -- mostly because Smith agreed to "fake kiss" for the camera. For most actors, even a whiff of intolerance or religious fanaticism can sink a career, but Smith has been able to ride out the Hubbard and homophobic bumps with little effort, and even less bad ink.
He's good-looking
From the time he was the Fresh Prince, Will Smith has been jump-starting teen libidos thanks to his innate blend of sweetness and mischief. When he got the chance to flex muscle and his trigger finger in Bad Boys, Smith proved he also had a potent macho side to his persona -- which opened the door to his image as a leading man in big budget action movies such as Independence Day.
Now that Smith is nearing the 40-year milestone, his image has become far more sophisticated and sexy instead of merely cute -- and his post-Ali body is the stuff of Greek legend. Yet, where many men become less approachable as a result of chiseled features and good looks, Smith remains human and warm in the eyes of the masses. In a recent appearance on The Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert cooed over Smith's good looks -- describing his face as "perfectly symmetrical" -- and asked Smith if there was a secret behind his universal appeal. In response, Smith pulled out his ears -- suggesting the source of his humanity lay in the degree of separation between his cranium and cartilaginous ear pavilions.
He's race transcendent
Thanks to Smith's universal appeal, the very term "race-transcendent" already sounds a bit dated, but as one of the first African-American actors to earn in excess of $20 million per picture (alongside Denzel Washington) and bear big-budget tentpoles on his broad shoulders to earn boffo receipts, Smith has been able to crush existing Tinseltown barriers and preconceptions about audience identification.
Some academics have suggested Smith's cross-racial appeal stems from a lack of overtly sexual roles, which reduces the so-called "white male threat" of emasculation and makes him "less scary" to Middle America.
It's a familiar argument, and one that used to resonate more in the late '60s, when the raw charisma and sex appeal of Sidney Poitier was purposefully muted in order to keep things "safe." Smith's ability to rise above race probably has more to do with his career decisions, and the fact he makes movies that are not targeted at one market niche over another, unlike his Bad Boys co-star Martin Lawrence.
Source
