{"id":3761,"date":"2005-10-21T07:55:16","date_gmt":"2005-10-21T11:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3761"},"modified":"2024-10-27T16:51:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T20:51:18","slug":"re-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3761","title":{"rendered":"Re-Cut Trailer: A Baffling Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 2 weeks ago, I noticed ads on television for a new film called Stay<\/i>. It is obviously a thriller of some kind – the ads showed an increasingly desperate Ryan Gosling (he also probably should be on my list of future Oscar winners <\/a>– I should do a post about him some day – that kid can ACT) – but there’s Ryan Gosling trying to convince people that his father is dead, but he’s alive, and yadda yadda. At one point, in the ad, there’s a close-up on Ryan Gosling’s eyes – and slowly – the screen image changes – to a close-up of another man’s eyes. They looked vaguely familiar. I thought that maybe they were Peter Sarsgaard’s eyes.<\/p>\n

Whatever. No biggie.<\/p>\n

A new thriller starring Ryan Gosling. Cool!<\/p>\n

Then – about a week ago – the ads changed. Suddenly – we see that it is Ewan feckin’ McGregor’s eyes – and suddenly – in the new ads – Ryan Gosling does NOT appear to be the star – but Ewan McGregor appears to be the star. It wasn’t Peter Sarsgaard’s eyes (however you spell his name – sorry) – it was McGregor’s. I should have known! You could see that little mole that McGregor has on his forehead … Now it is obvious whose eyes it is in that close-up.<\/p>\n

ANYHOO. Suddenly, my interest level in this film ratcheted up 100%. Nothing against Ryan Gosling – even though I have thought he was fantastic in pretty much anything he’s in (anyone see Murder by Numbers<\/i>? Honestly. His performance in that – as a cocky disaffected Columbine-esque high school student – is star-making. Truly. That was my first moment of awareness of Ruan Gosling, and I was blown away) – however: he is not enough of a draw yet to get me to go see a film. He’s still building his career, he’s still a newbie in many ways. Maybe not to the Tiger Beat crowd … perhaps that’s his main demographic at this point? Not sure.<\/p>\n

But I just found it interesting how they completely re-cut the ads – after a week of saturating the landscape with the Ryan Gosling version – to make it now seem like a Ewan McGregor vehicle – which is FAR more compelling to me (and probably to many others like me).<\/p>\n

I always wonder about that – they are obviously testing the waters – seeing who their audience is, who will be interested in this movie. Okay, so let’s float out the Ryan Gosling version …<\/p>\n

I wonder if “support” or “buzz” or “excitement” for that version was tepid … I know it was for me. It looked like a standard thriller to me, starring an up-and-coming Hollywood star – nothing to write home about. But Ewan McGregor? I’ll go see him in anything. I would sit in an ugly flourescent-lit office and watch him read the telephone book outloud. He’s a HUGE star.<\/p>\n

But … and here’s my theory … Hollywood doesn’t quiiiiiiite know what it has in Ewan McGregor. This has always been the case – and the fact that “Hollywood” would float out a version of the ad NOT featuring Ewan McGregor is proof of that, to me. I’m trying to imagine the same thing happening to another star of his caliber and visibility – and having a hard time picturing it. Would they ever create a version of an ad for a Johnny Depp movie and NOT feature Johnny Depp? In my view, Ewan McGregor is one of the best actors working today … but “Hollywood”, or the money-making people in Hollywood – don’t trust his level of stardom – don’t quiiiiite trust his appeal. They don’t “get it”. They don’t “get” that there are those of us out here (and I am so not alone) who will go to see Ewan McGregor do anything – in the same way that others will go see Johnny Depp do anything. McGregor has that kind of loyal fan base. But … he’s not easy to pin down, or control … Gosling obviously has a team of people working for him – he’s everywhere – he’s got publicists, a marketing team, a powerful agent … but sorry – you cannot force stardom. It must be developed. It will happen for Gosling, I am sure of it – he’s on that path – but he’s not there yet.<\/p>\n

The ads just were not compelling when it looked like a “Gosling vehicle”.<\/p>\n

But now – and I’ve read a couple of reviews where it is obvious that the main thrust of the film is actually the journey of the McGregor character – they have switched ploys, and have finally caved in to the obvious fact that McGregor is a ginormous star, and there are those of us out there – NOT the Tiger Beat crowd – who love him, and will go see him do anything.<\/p>\n

I still don’t think that McGregor really gets the props he deserves (to quote Eminem there). Yes, he gets millions of dollars per film. Go Ewan! He’s in the Star Wars movies. Blah blah blah<\/p>\n

But really? Hollywood is a bit baffled by him. They cannot control him. He became a star without their help … he became a star with Trainspotting<\/i> … and Hollywood always finds that kind of stardom a weeeeeeee bit baffling – not to mention unforgivable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 2 weeks ago, I noticed ads on television for a new film called Stay. It is obviously a thriller of some kind – the ads showed an increasingly desperate Ryan Gosling (he also probably should be on my list … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[385,442],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178729,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761\/revisions\/178729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}