Hollywood turns to unknowns as talent fails to deliver

For 25 years, the big talent agencies like CAA (Creative Artists Agency) have arrogantly wielded power in Hollywood, demanding higher and higher fees and residuals for movie stars. Salaries of $20m or more per movie were not uncommon. Now, brutally and efficiently, the Hollywood studios are wresting back control.

The threat of a serious economic recession, disunity among the Hollywood talent unions, fast falling DVD sales and the inability of any major star to guarantee that a film will make a profit, have all helped the major studios face down the agents and demand that even the biggest movie stars take hefty pay cuts.

"The $20m paycheck club in Hollywood is shrinking, and for good reason," a survey in Forbes magazine recently concluded. "When it comes to the highest-paid performers, the studios aren't getting good returns on their investment."

Final proof that star power means nothing in today’s Hollywood came when Seven Pounds, starring Will Smith, who many had called Hollywood's last movie star, foundered at the box office when it opened just before Christmas.

During the 80s and 90s, stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jim Carrey, with their ability to 'open' a movie with their name alone, were the most valuable commodities in Hollywood.

But in the new millennium, the value of star power has dramatically diminished. Not even someone with the tabloid mega-wattage of Angelina Jolie could turn two of her most recent films, Changeling and A Mighty Heart, into hits.

These days it’s the franchises owned and controlled by studios that are big earners

"We all know that the stock market has been plummeting," says Patrick Goldstein, who writes about movies for the Los Angeles Times. "But what's dropping even faster is the stock Hollywood studios put into the value of movie stars. Most studio slates are increasingly being built around movies that are star-free zones."

These days it's the franchises owned and controlled by the studios - series like Batman, Harry Potter, Transformers, Mission Impossible and next summer's Star Trek and X-Men sequels - which are the big money earners.

A good example of the kind of starless film Hollywood is increasingly betting on is the adolescent vampire romance Twilight, based on the popular book series. It was one of the biggest hits of last year, taking $186m in the US, despite starring a young English actor - Robert Pattinson - who was unknown before the film was released.

Hollywood quickly put a sequel into the works but refused to give Pattinson a percentage of the box office gross as his agents had demanded.

More recently, the werewolf vs vampire horror franchise Underworld has again proved how little audiences now care about stars. While the first two films in the series featured Kate Beckinsale, the third, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, which has just opened, stars the little known Rhona Mitra. Even so, the film took $20.8m in its first weekend; Will Smith's Seven Pounds, by comparison, took just $14.9m in its first weekend in the US, playing on more screens.

And it's telling that Slumdog Millionaire, which alone of all the major Oscar contenders has no stars at all, is well on the way to taking more than $100m. Revolutionary Road, starring Leonard DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, reunited for the first time since their 1997 mega-hit Titanic, not only failed to get any major Oscar nominations but has taken a miserable $12m at the box office.

As the recession bites and audiences look to the movies for entertainment and a way out of the gloom, Hollywood is looking forward to clearing heavy-duty Oscar movies out of the cinemas so it can slot in more starless franchises and comedies like the current US box office champ, Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

This is the film that has topped the box office, taking $83m in its first three weeks on release. It stars Kevin James. Kevin who? Who cares? Certainly not today's audiences.

For more on Hollywood and the film industry, read our Film Talk column

Plus: Slumdog Millionaire runs in to fresh controversy