Please Promote Spiderman, the 50th Remake
For the past year or so I’ve had the opportunity to work as a production assistant for several shows, including American Gods and The Girlfriend Project. I’ve learned how incredibly fast paced and the demanding the industry can be at times, working 12–16 hour days, nonstop during the week. It must be hard — I thought — to get so many people motivated to work on a project and continue to do so with optimism that this will all be worth it. Of course pay is a huge motivator, but I believe (at least for myself) that people must enjoy their job to some extent to commit such a huge chunk of their life into a project.
During the lecture for week 8, I learned about how some actors complain about not being paid for promoting their own movie. At first I thought of how strange that is that they would not be willing to promote a project they invested so much time in. But then I thought, what if you were just paid a fat cheque into playing this role for the sake of your Hollywood status name and in fact had no emotional interest to play the 6th Spiderman in the past 5 years.
I did a bit more digging and found other actors that regret or despise the movie they starred including Channing Tatum in GI Joe who explained in a radio interview with Howard Stern “Look, I’ll be honest. I f***en hate that movie. I hate that movie…(After) Coach Carter, they signed me for a three-picture deal … And as a young (actor), you’re like, `Oh my god, that sounds amazing, I’m doing that,’” Tatum said. Though he admits he thought “the script wasn’t any good,” he had “no option” but to move forward. As well, Taylor Pattinson was not fond of the Twilight series despite the huge cult fan following. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, when asked if the end of the franchise was bittersweet, Pattinson shrugged his shoulders, pointed to the audience and said “for them.”
Once you’ve become an established name (or brand), you become a commodity. Hollywood movies throw in celebrities into their movies for the sake of exposure, even if the storyline is complete garbage. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a movie and regret the 2 hours I will never get back. The production value of the movie can be valued by the amount of high status celebrities they were able to afford. Actors are bought for their name, therefore in my opinion should be paid for promoting the project they are working on. As some fans will actively search for new shows and movies starring their favorite actors, it would be a huge leverage and promotional tactic to use their celebrity endorsers. Also with extra compensation, actors will be more motivated to expose the project and actively engage with their fans.
It might make you cringe inside to be asked to play the remake version of Legally Blonde or the 100th James Bond, but if you were offered an obscene amount of money to play and promote the movie for your celebrity status, it might make me put my morals on hold and think for a while... I guess that’s what they call selling out?
