Not too long ago, movie stars generated Hollywood’s cultural cachet and powered its economic engine. A movie star’s aspirational visage, honed for public appeal, could turn sometimes even small-scale movies into large-scale hits garnering over $100 million. For the last couple of decades, those days have felt like a faint memory. The box office success of “Iron Man” in 2008, propelled by Robert Downey Jr.’s star power, spurred studios to mine pop culture material to make intellectual property the star. The collapse of home video during the emergence of streaming further narrowed the studio margins required to produce star-fronted movies. So have we reached the end of the era in which celebrities can sell tickets on their name alone? Not exactly, but it seems these days, if movie stars want hits, they have to work harder than ever to twist themselves to fit the moment.
Over the last calendar year, star-driven movies ranging from “Project Hail Mary” to “The Housemaid” have climbed the box office. But the films have required above-the-line talent to be less like idols and more like salespeople. Actors have always been a vital part of a movie’s publicity machine, appearing on late-night talk shows and on magazine covers in those weeks leading up to a movie’s release. But now, reaching a decentralized moviegoing public who are immune to traditional studio outreach requires uncommon tenacity and ingenuity across screens large and small; podcasts mainstream and niche; and more. In the last year, your marquee idols are now making pizza, popping up on game shows like “Family Feud,” cultivating brand deals and jumping through TikTok-ian hoops for your attention. Even Michael B. Jordan, who won the best acting Oscar in March for “Sinners,” needs to show up to marketing-driven events like CinemaCon to promote his remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
Let’s first consider Joseph Kosinski’s high-octane racing flick “F1.” That film about a cocky former racing phenom in search of redemption starred Brad Pitt, a proven enough talent who most fits the classic movie star mold. Nevertheless, Pitt had a tall task ahead of him. Outside of “Ford v Ferrari” (2019), recent racing movies (like the 2023 films “Gran Turismo” and “Ferrari”) have struggled to make their budget back. Also, Apple’s track record at the box office could best be described as shaky by leaning on a theatrical strategy that prizes subscriber growth, such as limited releases of “Highest 2 Lowest” or “The Lost Bus,” over ticket sales.
Additionally, Pitt’s prolonged legal battle with Angelina Jolie after the two separated, which included Jolie’s abuse allegations against Pitt (which the actor denied through his lawyer), had the potential to damage his star appeal.
But Pitt and the film’s production team approached the film’s promotion and its financing from a variety of angles. One of its producers, David Leener, helped broker sponsorship deals with brands like Tommy Hilfiger, SharkNinja, Mercedes-AMG and more for Pitt’s fictional racing team. Those ads reportedly amounted to over $40 million to help cover a portion of the film’s production budget. In that sense, Pitt adeptly auctioned off his star image onscreen to make the calculus of his star vehicle work.
Pitt further wove his star persona, which has often depicted him as a representation of authentic male coolness, into the racing world. He courted racing supporters by conducting interviews on Formula One’s official YouTube channel and driving with McLaren. Pitt even aligned himself with Apple’s best-known property when he and Tim Cook surprisingly appeared onstage at a panel for “Severance,” showing his keen ability to cross promote.
“Marty Supreme” similarly intertwined the film’s subject with its male star’s image making. Timothée Chalamet’s desire to make this story, of a midcentury American Jewish man hoping to dominate the table tennis world, an actual draw presented a chance to confirm his own box office appeal. He sent “Marty Supreme” jackets to celebrities like Susan Boyle and Tom Brady, and even shared a video of himself on top of the Las Vegas Sphere.
Were these stunts Chalamet as Marty or Chalamet as himself? “Marty Supreme” muddied those waters when a satirical video dropped of Chalamet in a video meeting with executives planning marketing for the movie. While the actor mildly came under fire after his comments about ballet and opera, by crafting a persona built on audaciousness he helped make “Marty Supreme” the highest grossing A24 movie, if only to tease what he might do next.
“The Housemaid,” conversely, found twice the draw by matching the literary success of Freida McFadden’s same-titled novel with known stars like Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. Like Pitt, Sweeney faced a precarious reintroduction to audiences following her ill-fated American Eagle denim campaign. While Sweeney’s previous film “Christy” bombed, her role as a live-in maid in Paul Feig’s erotic psychological thriller allowed her to tap the same sexy camp formula that made her rom-com “Anyone But You” a surprise hit. Sweeney and Seyfried further leaned into the film’s playful aspect by appearing on “Celebrity Family Feud,” a viral moment that reached those at home and online.
Sweeney also relies on her Instagram to promote her ventures. In January of this year, for instance, she posted a video of herself lacing the Hollywood sign with bras to announce her new lingerie line. On Instagram for “The Housemaid,” Sweeney shared behind-the-scenes photos from the film that went viral. Her approach allowed her to link her film’s campiness with her carefree candidness.
Emerald Fennell’s reimagining of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” relies on a similar formula: a popular literary property plus beautiful movie stars geared toward a female audience. She even added the kicker of a modern soundtrack by the “Always Everywhere” pop star Charli XCX. Interest (along with a little ire) was further piqued when Jacob Elordi was cast as Heathcliff, a character generally assumed to be Romani, and Margot Robbie as Catherine. The bodice ripper’s titillating poster, featuring its two stars in a lover’s embrace, also positioned the sexually complicated story as a simple, steamy romance.
Unlike Pitt and Sweeney, who attempted to skate around controversy, Robbie and Elordi turned theirs into marketing moments via fashion-oriented publicity stunts. The stars increased the perception of their mutual obsession, with Robbie sharing that on Valentine’s Day during shooting, Elordi filled her dressing room with roses addressed from Heathcliff. Robbie later got signet rings for the two. Robbie also wore the Taj Mahal diamond necklace at the film’s Los Angeles premiere, causing a stir when she referred to it as Elizabeth Taylor’s necklace even though it was originally a gift from the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan to his wife Mumtaz Mahal. The gaffe opened her to criticisms online of whitewashing the pendant’s origin.
Those decisions engaged an audience looking for a star-centered romance, and baited those searching for a darker take on the book’s toxic love story to rage online about the press tour’s flippancy.
Conversely, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s “Project Hail Mary” arrived with no discord. The cinematic adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel is an archetypal eventized movie star vehicle in the image of “Gravity” and “Cast Away,” featuring Ryan Gosling teaming with a rocklike extraterrestrial to save earth. Gosling personified the film’s lighthearted appeal by speaking with a real astrophysicist on YouTube, appearing on “Jeopardy!” and making a (digitally-enhanced) video in which he appears to throw a branded “Project Hail Mary” football through the hole of giant Randy’s Donuts sign.
In these gimmicks, one can see Gosling taking a page from the “Barbie” playbook, which other actors have also heeded: Sell yourself and your film as fun, stylish and worthy of big-screen attention, even if it means bringing their heightened aura back down to earth.
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