Stars: They Ain't What They Used to Be

April 8, 2008 — -- George Clooney. Mud. Football. Again, George Clooney.

You'd think if anyone could get American audiences off their iPhones and into a real movie theater, it would be the Oscar winner and two-time title holder of People's Sexiest Man Alive. You'd be wrong.

Clooney's "Leatherheads" bombed at the box office over the weekend, fumbling to third place behind gambling drama "21" and family flick "Nim's Island." To be sure, $13.5 million sounds like a ton of money. But Clooney, who not only starred in the 1920s football comedy, but also directed and helped write it, was expected to bring in a bigger bounty than that.

"Considering he directed it, starred in it, and as he said, overhauled the script, he could've been getting $20 million for that movie. If you're getting paid $20 million, you should open the movie at $20 million," said Nikki Finke, who runs the entertainment industry blog Deadline Hollywood Daily. "You can point to a lot of reasons why this movie didn't do well. But you would expect someone who is a box office star to override the problem."

And it's not just Clooney. Hardly any actor can draw moviegoers to theaters based on name value alone anymore.

Take Tom Cruise — "Mission Impossible" was the third highest grossing film of 1996, scoring $45 million in its opening weekend. Cruise's most recent movie, 2007's "Lions for Lambs," opened at $6.7 million. Or Julia Roberts — "Erin Brockovich" bagged $28 million when it hit theaters in 2000. "Charlie Wilson's War," despite putting fellow A-list actors Tom Hanks and Phillip Seymour Hoffman alongside Roberts, opened at $9.7 million late last year.

There are the stars who sell tabloids — Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie and Katie Holmes, according to Forbes' 2007 analysis of top-selling celebrity faces. And there are the stars who sell movies — but who those stars are, the industry isn't quite sure.

"There's a distinction between being a movie star and being a box office star. Being a movie star means you get on the covers of magazines, you get a lot of tabloid coverage, you're talked about a lot. Being a box office star means you put moviegoers in theater seats," Finke said. "Right now, you're hearing Hollywood ask, 'Who is box office?' It's been extremely difficult to pinpoint. Will Smith is a box office star. Adam Sandler still has an audience, if it's a comedy. Will Ferrell has stumbled several times."