I can't tell you what movies he should've been in, because I'm not him. I'm not his agent. All I know is Jamie has been in the game for over 30 years, and probably the relationships to corroborate. Won an Oscar. Looks 20 years younger than he really is. And has more talent than anyone in the game. Why he has only 3 maybe 4 great roles is beyond me. He should be up there with Leo, Denzel, Spacey's pedophile ass, DDL. He's not even Affleck/Damon territory.
Again, I don't care about blockbusters. I could care less if he's in Avengers 7 or Jurassic Universe. I asked where is the Mike Tyson role, him, Scorsese, and Tyson himself have teased for years.
If you want me to go deeper than than that, I think Jamie is a paycheck actor. If something critically acclaimed pops up, he'll throw his bid in, like that with RDJ a few years ago. Jamie is better than 90% of the shyt he's slapped his name on. He seemingly does whatever his schedule permits and cuts the biggest check to him. Because his output isn't the problem. And is his output isn't the problem then that suggests he either doesn't care to do critically acclaimed shyt or his schedule doesn't permit, because he's tied up with half ass shyt.
Again, just about everyone you named built their cache as A-list actors much before Jamie. You don't care about blockbusters but you asked earlier why he hasn't done anything with blockbuster potential. You told me you didn't compare him to Will or Denzel but you just named Denzel and a slew of other actors on that level.
Post-Oscar win Jamie's role selection was no more inferior than anyone else's. It was, however, more risky and detached "bend the knee to the Oscar winner" ego.
Stealth
Jarhead
Miami Vice
Dreamgirls
The Kingdom
The Soloist
Law Abiding Citizen
In this same period, Affleck who you say he's not on the level off had
Man About Town
Hollywoodland
Smoking Aces
He's Just Not That Into You
State of Play
Extract
I'm not seeing a gap in quality favoring Affleck. Damon had Bourne and the Ocean's series with an ensemble cast.
From that point forward, again, no actor in Hollywood was really carrying movies like that off the strength of them being them anymore. Leo was pretty much the last to do that with the Gatsby/Wolf of Wall Street/Revenant run.
Will was being critiqued for failed blockbusters and "Oscar bait". Denzel was a long-made man in his 60s, getting any movie he wants green lit because of his name. Anybody else who was going to see success were doing so with an IP/built universe. Affleck included outside of Gone Girl. Will included until dusting off Bad Boys.
May Jamie be a paycheck actor? Possibly, but after taking the late 00s risks he took, complimented by the state of Hollywood shifting away from bonafide movie superstars, what he's done has made the most sense.
He didn't have a 90s run capped off with an overdue Oscar in 2001 allowing him to coast like Denzel or Day-Lewis.
He didn't have every third movie he was in being made by Scorsese like Leo.
We were not going to get a black Batman or Jason Bourne.
He didn't use the post-Ray period to spam the Save The World archetype, or any archetype, into billions and buy himself time to wrestle the death of bankable stars like Will. This probably the most quantifiable "misstep" we can point at but I can't knock him for taking challenging roles.
Alright fellas let’s reel this in
—-before falling off. 48 Hours was 1982. Life was 1999. (And he still has Shrek, Dream Girls, and Dolemite post fall-off). He belongs nowhere near this thread
