Julia Roberts‘ last two movies are the lowest box office openings of her entire acting career.
I am a huge fan of Julia Roberts. Ever since she starred in the award-winning movie Erin Brockovich I fell in love with her acting skills and charismatic personality. But, it looks as though a new generation of moviegoers are no longer interested in Julia Roberts’ movies. In a new report by the Hollywood Reporter, writer Pamela McClintock points out that every movie Julia Roberts has appeared in the last six years has flopped.
In fact, Julia Roberts has not had a hit movie since Eat Pray Love and Valentine’s Day which were released in 2010. Since then, her last movie The Secret in Their Eyes flopped in the box office earning only $6.7 million, one of the lowest box office openings in her career. But it gets worse. Her latest movie Mother’s Day is only expected to make $10.1 million which is even lower than The Secret in Their Eyes.
So, it begs the question – is Julia Roberts overrated? According to The Hollywood Reporter’s sources, it’s no longer about acting skills in Hollywood.
“Nowadays, female leads are usually plucked to be posterized if they’re of the comedic variety, not necessarily for their acting prowess. Julia Roberts was one of the last true actresses that earned her name above the title of a film with acting alone. That’s how big her draw was. What happened? Well, since Eat Pray Love in 2010, she hasn’t really done anything that’s connected with audiences or the zeitgeist of the times,” says box-office analyst Jeff Bock.
But, what’s happening to Julia Roberts is affecting other Box Office hit actors including Johnny Depp and Will Smith, two actors who used to bring in at least $100M box office weekends. Now, these actors struggle to keep up with modern day audiences. According to a previous study, acting talent doesn’t really seem to matter with audiences nowadays.
Twitter teamed with analytics firm Crimson Hexagon to analyze tweets for 33 movies in 2015, spanning each movie’s lifecycle from trailer release to post-production. The movies including 14 “over-performoers” which had an average box-office-to-budget ratio of 2.5, and 18 “under-performers,” with a box office/budget ration of 0.5.
According to the study here are the key findings:
- Box Office hit movies had 150% more posts on twitter than the movies that bombed.
- Movies that had talent active on Twitter saw a 326% boost in average daily conversations about the motion pictures, in comparison to actors who did not have Twitter.
- Twitter was also able to predict how well a movie was going to do in the box office by measuring the positive sentiment.
“It’s a powerful story to tell: Having your cast on Twitter does boost the overall conversation about your movie,” said Rachel Dodes, head of film partnerships for Twitter.
Hollywood is changing. If you’re an actor, you may want to ditch acting classes and start posting on social media.
Via THR
