Neither producers or audiences need stars anymore

“Neither producers or audience need stars anymore”

In my opinion I do not believe that film stars are important to either the audience or the producers any more, this is because of the switch to preferring franchises over stand alone, star-driven films that have previously been the more popular type of films.

Film stars use to be able to bring in an audience; this was because of what they offered the audience. Stars often play “types” and this gives the audience a sense of security, they know what to expect when watching the film, an example of this would be Tom Cruise, his character is expected to be the hero of the film, and expected to uphold American values throughout it. Stars where also useful for producers who could predict what type of films audiences liked based of a stars popularity, however now this same prediction can be made by using franchises, a more popular franchises tells producers what sort of film audiences are more likely to go to see at that moment in time.  Stars also use to become popular based on their own qualities, and how this could be used in marketing to promote the characters they play and the films they’re going to be staring in, this is less important to audiences now who focus more on the character and less on who is playing them.

However there are still cases of stars-driven films being successful, sometimes still more successful than franchises. A recent example of this is The Revenant, staring Leonardo DiCaprio. The film reached the top of the box office, earning £11.2M, knocking Star Wars: the force awakens into second place. The Revenant is a star-driven film, the casting of Leonardo DiCaprio being done to bring in an audience familiar with his work and who will go to see a film staring him, regardless of whether they believe it will be good or not, because they rely on his performance to make them enjoy it rather than the story itself. Star Wars; the force awakens, is part of a franchise and would be expected to top the box office because of the recent increase of the popularity of franchises and what they can offer audiences. The top three films of 2014 where all franchises; Transformers: age of extinction, The Hobbit; Battle of five armies and Guardians of the galaxy. This makes The Revenants star based popularity a rare occurrence, but one that can still happen if the right star is cast.

The reason for Franchises taking the place of film stars is that can offer more than film stars are able too. A franchise can offer an expanded universe to it’s audience, branching off into games, TV-series, toys, and novels. An example of this is the Harry Potter franchise which took place between 2001-2011, which means a generation of people grew up watching these films, making the franchise more than just a film, and became a part of people’s lives. This is something that star-driven films cannot do as they are stand-alone films and unable to open up an expanded universe that audiences can invest their time in. Franchises such as Harry Potter become social experiences, audience members most likely went to see each film with the same group of people, enjoying the shared experience, again this is something that a star-driven film cannot do as it is more likely to be something you go to see without much anticipation for it’s release.

Another reason for the decline in star-driven films popularity is home entertainment. We are now able to access more from films in our homes this includes games with up to a hundred hours of game play, this makes going to see one film seem like we are getting less for our money, rather than paying to see one films, we can buy a game and have more time to experience that world and get to know the characters within it, often able to buy expansion packs to continue the game. Games can also be a more social experience than the cinema, offering the options to play online with friends as well as alone. Games are unlikely to be driven by stars, the focus being on the characters and story line rather than who is voicing or who the character is modelled on. There are exceptions to this such as the Lara Croft games but more often than not games are not based around a star actor or actress.

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