There is nothing more appealing to some movie fans than an all-star lineup of A-list actors. Movies like the Ocean’s trilogy, Heat and The Departed all caused quite the commotion when they were first introduced. But are big name actors, the ones with huge market power, always worth the effort and the sky high price tag that inevitably joins them?
The most obvious reason to have a large ensemble cast of stars is the draw power. The public will often be drawn to a movie simply because their favorite actor or actress will be gracing the big screen. Yet the most successful movies to date have relied more on title notoriety than popular stars. Did the original Star Wars or Lord of the Rings have any major stars? Not a one. Perhaps the movies themselves managed to create a Hollywood star or two along the way, but actor stardom was not a key ingredient. Could another actor have made Spider-Man just as successful as Tobey McGuire? Probably so and there are some who believe that others would have been more suited for the role of Peter Parker.
That’s not to say that all star studded casts out there should be burned alive and run over with a Buick. The fantastic ‘96 drama Sleepers was one of the better movies ever produced by the tyrannical war machine known as Hollywood. Sleepers remains an exception to a rule (which I just made up, but it should be a rule) that more than two stars is a sinking ship. Let us not kid ourselves by thinking that too many super actors in a movie doesn’t mean serious ego wars. As if a movie director needs more headaches.
On many movie sets, it is often the superstar that has more overall
power than the director who technically should be the supreme overlord
of movie production. There aren’t too many businesses today where the
employee has more power then his boss. Imagine an accounting firm where
a department head must literally treat his underlings with professional
equality because they hold more power than him/her in both the company
and maybe even the entire industry. Pretty hard to work under these
kind of 
conditions wouldn’t you say?
Producers' movie star addiction has lead to many surprising choices in casting over the last two decades. One classic example of casting gone wrong is I Robot. Sure Will Smith did a good job playing the role of Detective Del Spooner, but it was not true to the classic Issac Asimov book that the movie was based on. Spooner wasn’t a 6′4, 250 black Goliath, but rather a small white guy who couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. There can be no doubt that the producers wanted a big star and Will Smith was their first choice. Didn’t matter to them one shallow and egotistical lick that the casting was off by a few light years. As important as name recognition and image are, sacrificing the integrity of a script or book, especially of such a classic like I Robot, should not be done.
The use of multiple stars in one movie production is entirely a marketing ploy that almost always carries very little professional merit. It is the fans who unfortunately suffer the most however, when they are continuously misled into believing that an all-star movie line-up translates into a quality product. Why the fans repeatedly allow their naivety to get the better of them remains a mystery, but why the movers and shakers in Hollywood continue to invest lavish sums in their leading talent is not. It is an advertising tool and nothing more.
Ozzy Neav
De Novo Magazine
**Read more articles by Ozzy Neav**
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