I think having good actors people know are good actors is a draw. It is for me, how about you? When you see an actor you deem as 'good' in a movie does it help, hurt or have no effect on your interest?
This Oscar guy I have never seen. Oh wait he was in Drive but I had no idea it was him until someone put the info in this thread. And that was neither here nor there as far as putting him on my radar. I would have preferred someone more well -known who could bring gravitas to the Apocalypse role. Why is that strange or 'not right'?
Because your assumption is that because he's not known to you, that he can't bring gravitas to the part and that's not true. Perfect example back to X men..Fassbender, at the time, was not known to me, that's me speaking personally. But when I saw him in X Men First Class, I was hooked. Dude owned that role, and was the best thing about that movie in my eyes. He was perfect and did everything with that role to make it great and make him standout. Then when it comes to James Bond, at the time, I'd only seen Daniel Craig in one thing, that Tomb Raider movie, and that's far from anything to highlight on a resume and he was barely in the movie so really I had no idea what to expect from his Bond but I was going to see the movie anyway and he was perfect. But there were people who'd seen him in Layer Cake who knew exactly what he could do with the role and I'm sure there expectations were met or surpassed. Because I love the character of Bond, I'm going to see the movie. Because I'm a fan of x men as a franchise, which includes movies and comics, I'm going to see it.
There were other factors keeping the Terry Gilliam movie from making tons of money. That's a terrible example. It was not widely released and the subject matter isn't that accessible.
People waited for the more accessible film playing in the theater at the mall or down the block. You can understand why they didn't go searching for a theater that played The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus I hope.
Well we disagree on that then. Yeah there were plenty of issues with it but I believe the buzz he got from one role made him a bigger star but the question is always is it the role that's making you big or are you making the role big? There are certain stars who are going to get their movies in wide release regardless of the situations because the studios know they'll make money off of it. That movie not only had his last role but also Johnny Depp and the studio would've pushed it out to the moon if they knew it would make money. There's a method to movie releases and a lot of it is audience research and sometimes the audience just doesn't care about people in certain roles no matter how big of a star we think they are. Sam Jackson has done a lot of movies and a good number of them have been direct to video but I think we'd all agree he's a household name definitely. But there are certain films he does that the studios know aren't going to pull in major dollars so they don't push them out to a wide audience, which is why they pop up on netflix or on demand.
Hollywood is driven now by franchises breh. Christian Bale is a star sure but Batman and the terminator are bigger stars. Even Robert Downey Jr., the highest paid man in the business, seems to have an issue opening a movie that's not an existing property. Sherlock Holmes? Hit. Iron Man? Hit. The Judge? Flop. The Soloist? Flop. The one movie he's got in between the big franchises that was a hit for him is Due Date and that was an ensemble more than just about him.
I'm not saying you're completely wrong or even saying that your personal reasons are wrong because they're personal, but what I am saying is that the era of big name stars being the sole reason for a movie's success or even the sole reason a mass audience will go see something now is over and it's been discussed and written about ad nausuem for the past few years.
. There are already two imposing alphas(Wolverine and Magneto) in this.
