It being Oscar season, I've made an observation: Brad Pitt's status as a Hollywood power player has shot into the stratosphere. He may not have starred in a box-office blockbuster this year, but I think 2006 is a banner year for him just the same.
Not only is he starring in one of the frontrunners for best picture, Babel, but he has producer credits on the other, more heavily favored frontrunner, Martin Scorsese's The Departed, though he wasn't nominated for it.
Considering how unforgiving Hollywood be, I find this baffling.
When Pitt burst onto the mainstream in Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise, people were gushing about his charisma and sex appeal and hailed him as the next Redford, especially when he starred in a Redford movie, A River Runs Through It.
1994 would prove to be his true breakout year, however, as he overshadowed Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire and enthralled audiences with his turn as a turn-of-the-century James Dean in Legends of the Fall. He was quick to follow that up with Seven.
And then, for years thereafter, he starred in one misfire after another. From Seven Years in Tibet to Fight Club, he couldn't seem to carry any project to box-office success.
It puzzled me that even though he didn't seem to have any box office muscle to flex, for some reason he never entirely lost his golden-boy status. It seemed that only numbers geeks (like myself) thought he was just a flash in the pan. I never understood how he never lost "it" boy status, even though he had something like four or five bombs or underperformers in a row.
In 2000 he married popular wet dream Jennifer Aniston. He was still pretty much in box office limbo, but he managed to grab headlines just the same.
In 2001 he then rode the Soderberg/Clooney train to success with Ocean's Eleven, his first $100+ million hit in seven years, one he couldn't even really take credit for, unlike, say Matt Damon for his Bourne movies. He then followed this up with the hit Troy and his biggest hit to date, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, establishing himself as a box-office star.
This is where things get mindblowing.
What kills me is how, after four or five years of marriage to a woman every other heterosexual male would love to shag, he basically dumps her (admittedly for the also eminently shaggable Angelina Jolie), and has a whole lot of people, men and women, nodding in assent and practically saying "it's all your fault for letting him go, Jen." He then sires a baby by the woman he swore he didn't leave his wife for (how many people actually believed that, anyway), and everyone is now cheering them on as a Hollywood power couple. And now here he is starring in one of the Oscar best picture contenders and producing another.
This is why this perplexes me:
Tom Cruise jumped on a sofa and barked at some TV journalist and everyone thinks he's insane, or a closet homosexual, or any of a million other conspiracy theories. People don't like him; the Razzies award people invented a whole new category just for him, Paramount Pictures, the studio he made probably two billion dollars for in the past twenty years cut him loose because of his recent eccentricity, and there are people still convinced that his recent baby and marriage with Katie Holmes is just one big stunt to revitalize his flagging career. Obviously, then, it's not a question of good looks.
Russell Crowe vented his wrath on some little prick of a hotel clerk who flashed him some attitude, and suddenly became a Hollywood pariah. His last two films underperformed at the box office, with his reunion with Gladiator director Ridley Scott doing a spectacular belly flop. I guess it didn't help that he's widely perceived as a bully, but one thing's for sure: it's not a question of bad boy status.
So why, in a culture/community that can end careers just by refusing to buy movie tickets, is Brad Pitt seemingly on top of the world even after being just as big if not a bigger jerk than some A-list stars who have been recently cast down for less? Bad ticket sales didn't kill his career, and neither did bringing a nasty end to what everyone thought was a dream marriage.
At this point I don't think even bashing Jews or screaming "nigger" at black people in a nightclub (or doing both in succession) could kill his career.
Whatever potion it is he's used to enthrall much of the world at large, I sure want some of it.
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