When stars flail

The spring and summer box office has murdered megawatt stars like Denzel Washington,Julia Roberts,Eddie Murphy,John Travolta,Russell Crowe...

The spring and summer box office has murdered megawatt stars like Denzel Washington,Julia Roberts,Eddie Murphy,John Travolta,Russell Crowe,Tom Hanks,Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell. Can Brad Pitt escape?

A-list movie stars have long been measured by their ability to fill theatres on opening weekend. But never have so many failed to deliver,resulting in some rare soul-searching by motion picture studios about why the old formula isnt workingand a great deal of anxiety among stars about the potential vaporisation of their 20 million paychecks.

The cratering of films with big stars is astounding, said Peter Guber,former chairman of Sony Pictures. These super-talented people are failing to aggregate a large audience,and everybody is looking for answers.

Will Ferrell bombed in Land of the Lost,a 100 million comedy that sold only 49 million in tickets in North America. Julia Roberts missed with Duplicity,a 60 million thriller that attracted 40.6 million. Angels amp; Demons Hanks was soft. The same for The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 Washington and Travolta. Imagine That,starring Murphy,was such a disaster that Paramount Pictures had to take a write-down. Sandlers Funny People limped out of the gate and collapsed.

The fading ability of Hollywood stars to command box-office attention,and why that is happening,has been a perennial topic in Hollywood. And economists and academics have long argued that marquee names are not worth their expense. How is Hollywood reacting to the power brownout? Studios arent giving up on top-tier starstheir presence can make a huge difference overseas and factor heavily into the sale of movies to television channelsbut they are trying to pay them less or looking for less-expensive alternatives.

This month,a salary spat between Washington and 20th Century Fox broke into public view. Variety reported that Fox wanted to pay Denzel Washington about 16 million to appear in Unstoppable,a thriller about a runaway train.

There are also some specific explanations about the recent crop of failures. Several of these stars are aging while others have allowed their fans to move on by working infrequently Julia Roberts. Others may be suffering by wearing their routine too thin Will Ferrell. Now Brad Pitt has an opportunity to stop the bleedingwith Inglourious Basterds,an R-rated Nazi thriller directed by Quentin Tarantino.

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Many people think a new phenomenon has popped up in recent months to undercut stars. The surge in social networking services like Twitter and Facebook,not to mention text messaging,has made it much harder for studios to persuade consumers that the movies are worth their time.