Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
March 27, 2012
Brett Beach: I will be curious to see how the next project of each one fares. Stewart is entering another extended commitment with Snow White and the Huntsman, which has a built-in brand name, but where she is also being played up as the star (even if it looks like Charlize Theron gets to have all the fun). Meanwhile Lawrence has the more modest thriller The House at the End of the Street this fall, which maybe has the chance for surprise Distburbia type success. Still, as Max says, it is all in how you measure success. Lawrence is now part of two different franchises and already had an Oscar nomination. That's pretty heady.
David Mumpower: The other aspect of her presence in X-Men: First Class is that what Lawrence has accomplished at the age of 21 is participation in two tentpole franchises. Not many people in this industry star in multiple $55+ million openers, much less done so by the time they can legally order a potent potable. Ignoring all of the (well deserved) critical praise she received for Winter's Bone, she would already be world renowned simply for her most recent two projects. And while we are still describing superlatives for The Hunger Games' opening weekend, here is a good one. It earned $6 million more on opening weekend than the exceptional X-Men: First Class managed during its entire domestic run.
As Lawrence moves forward, what is seminal to her career trajectory is that she act as if she enjoys all of the attention. Out of the three people who star in the Twilight franchise, only Taylor Lautner exudes happiness about the state of his career. Stewart comes across as stifled and claustrophobic about her unexpected celebrity. Robert Pattinson seems to hate everyone breathing the same air, including even himself. Lawrence scored a lot of points with the manner she carried herself during Oscars season last year. And she can now stake a claim as the star of the next franchise that replaces Harry Potter and Twilight. As long as she avoids doing the Full Lohan, this battle is hers.
As for the men, I agree that Hutcherson was already more established. At the time, he seemed like he missed out when he failed to secure the lead in The Amazing Spider-Man. With the benefit of hindsight, this may have been the best thing that ever happened to him as an actor. The pressure is on Sony now to prove that Andrew Garfield is a better choice since those were the finalists and they picked the one without The Hunger Games on his resume. As for Liam Hemsworth, people know who he is now. Combining that with his bloodlines, his career is made whether this proves to be the best thing he ever does or the start of something special. Either way, Baby Thor will always find work as long as he comports himself as well as big brother has thus far.
Reagen Sulewski: It's going to be interesting to see what happens with Snow White and the Huntsman, which will tell a lot about whether Stewart is going to have a significant post-Twilight career. While I agree that she's pretty uninterested in her performance in those movies, she's not actually without talent, if you're one of the 12 people who saw The Runaways. The crushing expectations of massive fame are going to task even the best of us and it shows a big difference between her and Lawrence that both have faced it and Lawrence managed it without seeming like she'd like to cut the next person who asked her about the filming process. It probably helps that Lawrence had a level of fame and success before Hunger Games, whereas Stewart came from more or less nowhere.
On the Hutcherson/Hemsworth debate, I think it's going to be a fairly long time before people can actually tell the two Hemsworth brothers apart, and that's going to be a difficult hurdle to jump (Ben and Casey are never mistaken for each other, to give one not so random example).
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