Angelina Jolie jolts a mans world: ACTION FILMS

Wanted opened at 50.9 million against WALL-E two summers ago and Smith opened at 50.3 million in 2005.
Sony also has her next project,The Tourist,a reworking of the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer,which will open in February. That film pairs her with one of the most bankable actors in the world,Johnny Depp. As Elise,a femme fatale,Jolie gets to show off her sensual side and her active one when killers start chasing the patsy she has put in harms way.

No actress in Hollywood history has been able to chisel out the supremacy Jolie has in a male-dominated genre. Actually,her achievement is bigger than that. Her standard deal,which she received for Salt and Tourist,is matched by only one or two other actors in the world,with 20 million up front,a hefty share of the profits plus other sizable ancillary benefits. She already was getting 15 million for Smith and Wanted.

The fact that she is in the entertainment industry and can approach a male salary is an anomaly, says Lori Watson,director of womens and gender studies at the University of San Diego. Maybe she can command a salary,but she cant break through the expectations that women are supposed to be beautiful and sexualised and fit a certain mold and behave in a certain way. Over the years,mostly thanks to the efforts and vision of director James Cameron,audiences have been treated to a rare female lead who can handle herself in a gun or fistfight. Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley in Aliens in 1986,Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991 and Zoe Saldana and Michelle Rodriguez in Avatar last year all represented strong,confident women ready to knock some heads. Kate Beckinsale and Milla Jovovich carved out B-movie franchises as action heroines in the fantasy-horror genre Beckinsale with Underworld and Jovovich with Resident Evil. And Cameron Diaz,Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore threw themselves into action camp with the successful Charlies Angels movies but those were highly stylized three-handers,and all three thesps have since quickly retreated to more traditional roles. Diaz did just jump on a motorcycle with Cruise in Knight And Day,but that has underperformed in North America Television has been a better training ground for the female action archetype. Jessica Alba launched her career in Dark Angel Cameron again!,Jennifer Garner was fierce as the college student/spy of Alias, courtesy of J.J. Abrams,and Joss Whedon birthed Buffy The Vampire Slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar and Dollhouse Eliza Dushku.

Its notable that Garner dabbled in action on the big screen in Daredevil and its spinoff Elektra,but quickly returned to the world of romantic comedy when those failed. Alba suited up for the Fantastic Four movies but had very little to do. And while Scarlett Johanssons turn as Black Widow in Iron Man 2 looked promising,that was a small part and no one expects her to spend much more time in the blow-em-up genre. Other top actresses still command huge audiences in less surprising contexts. Sandra Bullock has reminded everyone that she can draw major bank,in feel-good drama The Blind Side and traditional romantic comedy The Proposal. And Julia Roberts is likely to clean up in Eat Pray Love. Like those women,Jolie also has an Oscar on her mantle,and a genuine yen to tackle challenging parts in adult dramas such as Changeling,A Mighty Heart and Girl,Interrupted,which got her that gold statuette and an asterisk for oddest acceptance speech. But Jolie has also contributed her voice to three cartoons Kung Fu Panda,Beowulf and Shark Tale that have grossed another 1.2 billion worldwide.

Jolies not bulletproof. Shes had her misfires and middling movies Taking Lives and Beyond Borders come to mind,but shes got the dramatic acting chops and the athletic prowess to sell herself in almost anything though even her prestige movies dont always bring in the big bucks.
So what,precisely,cant she do? Well,just one thing,actually. Romantic comedy. She did try it once,in Life,Or Something Like It in 2002,and the 14.4 million domestic gross sent a message she clearly noted. Shes too strong,shes too forceful, says Hollywood historian David Thomson Rosebud: The Story Of Orson Welles. And thats not just her screen character. Its her public character,too. Shes not got that sort of availability for romance. She isnt really sentimentally appealing. She needs to be doing strong things crazy things,sometimes to work on screen.

Put another way,Jolie is tough for female audiences to get behind. Shes threatening. Whether accurate or not,many perceive even Jennifer Aniston to have been a victim of Jolies sharkish charm after husband Brad Pitt became smitten with Jolie during the shoot for Smith.
My feeling on the ground is at the beginning of that relationship a lot of women viewed her as a homewrecker, says Watson. But since then,her charitable work,her adoption,her work with the U.N.,and the work that theyre doing in New Orleans and her public face as a mother appeals to a lot of women as a kind of person who has A a completely supportive partner that a lot of women would like and dont have,and b someone who can manage a family and a career and is committed to those mainstream values even if she lives in a very different,romanticised,Hollywood rich kind of way. But how long can her appeal last? Her fans are beginning to slide more heavily into the over-30 crowd,away from the male teens who want to see her bend bullets and look at the camera over a naked,tattooed back. Sooner rather than later,theyre going to want to see a new face and naked back.

Perhaps Jolie is aware of this. Because now,at the pinnacle of her success,she is making noises that she might not be much longer for the business. Im very,very grateful,its a fun job. Its a luxury, she recently told Vanity Fair. But I dont think Ill do it much longer.
Jolie is only 35 years old. By the Indiana Jones standard,then,shes got another 30 years of running,punching and flipping ahead. Although shes trimmed her work commitments down to one film a year,shes got sequels to Salt,Wanted and even,possibly,Tourist to consider. Also,theres the Sleeping Beauty spinoff Maleficent,a new take on Cleopatra,the dark drama Serena for director Darren Aronofsky,and another potential franchise spun from the Patricia Cornwell character Dr. Kay Scarpetta,a sleuthing medical examiner.

If she did call it quits,is there anyone to carry the mantle if Jolie suddenly walked away?
I dont see anybody right now, di Bonaventura says. Will there be more female action heroes? There will be another one,yeah,I believe that. You look at these things as a progression. First they tried to mimic what a male action star was. And now with Angie,youre just letting her be what she is. Weve gotten away from that male classification of what is an action star. And that means that will open possibilities for somebody else. You just needed somebody to break the ground.