Question: How many actors does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: 2231. That’s one actor to change the light bulb and 2230 to stand at the bottom of the ladder bitterly lamenting, ‘That should have been me up there.’

The basic concept of the star-driven box-office hit is clearly coming progressively under threat. The reasons are various and many, though the wane at the top end can be largely attributed to the huge mega-budget spectacle of the studio flagship special effects films that appeal to global audiences and now dominate the worldwide box office. Movies such as Avatar, Transformers, 2012, Star Trek et al don’t have pricey stars, because the films themselves are the pricey stars. This is a trend that looks set to stay with us.

Not that Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Julia Roberts and the like need to lose sleep just yet, as there are still enough pictures requiring some form of human being on screen to provide these folks with a decent living. It does, however, beg the question: what is, and indeed who is, a real film star capable of opening a movie nowadays? Where are the contemporary counterparts for the Paul Newmans, Steve McQueens, Marilyn Monroes, James Cagneys, and Audrey Hepburns of yesteryear? People that by weight of name alone, could pack cinemas all over the world simply by starring in a film? Frankly, the volume of filmed material and the competitive options open to the consumer have laid to rest the status of film stars as Gods and Goddesses who must be prayed to weekly at the local cineplex.

Again—alarmingly, given that the top end of the independent film appeal is almost entirely driven by a defined hard core of auteur directors such as the Coen Brothers, Steven Soderbergh and Ang Lee—it is increasingly hard for an actor to establish a strong foothold within this sector. And when one of the tinsel-town thespian aristocrats deems to delve into the twilight world of independent production, disaster is never too far away: Michael Douglas in King of California, Harrison Ford in Crossing Over, anyone?

This is a marriage that always seems uncomfortably false. Commercially speaking any distributor, while recognising the value of the performer, also knows that inevitably the very savvy film critics will spot the misfit and scream ‘vanity project’, thus potentially nullifying any added appeal the project may have had anyway.So are we saying that the night of 1000 stars is probably over? Well, in a way, yes. Clearly only a very few people can definitely open a film, and then it has to fall directly within the franchise of whatever appeal that star is recognised for.

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This article continues in movieScope Magazine, Issue 16 (March/ April 2010)