tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

While it has no bearing on tMF's upcoming launch of actresses' profiles, it seems some of the latest news stories about female stars are as nasty as they come.

News Story #1: The Guardian recently posted a rather scathing article that attacked actress Nicole Kidman (show here in the film Dogville) on her recent role choices and even on her personal life.

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Leading online film sites such as Cinematical and Hollywood Elsewhere are fuming mad and they have good reason to be, as can be seen from the extract from the article quoted below:

"If only you weren't married, because then you could fade away like Grace Kelly, marry the witless king of some corrupt, made-up, toy principality whose only redeeming feature is its colorful Ruritanian military uniforms. But then I remember: you were once a Scientology hostage bride, so you've done all that before.

And what magic are you working on these big Hollywood producers that persuades or forces them to let you keep working? Does Keith Urban know what you're up to? Or do you just have some really juicy Polaroids of Tom and his crazy co-religionists locked together in some sort of sweat-soaked Scientological excelsis? Because if so, well, do your worst. But if not - retire! "

This is the first time that tMF is actually posting something about celebrity 'juice'. While we frown upon the use of pap pics on other sites and the celebration of actors' tragedies, it seems this time the writer of this article has completely abused his privileges and has definitely gone too far. Never mind the fact that Ms. Kidman's latest films are not as successful or as critically-acclaimed as her previous ones, the personal attacks and the tone of the article are so mean and so nasty that one cannot help but wonder if there is some really sinister intent behind the article itself.

News Story # 2: Slashfilm picked up a rather controversial news story when they posted about Warner Bros President of Production Jeff Robinov stating that the studio is no longer producing films with female leads. Says the blogger:

"Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a new rule that “We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead”, according to DeadlineHollywood. Apparently, Robinov won’t even look at a script with a female lead. And why has Robinov come around to this new way (Neanderthal, so rather old way) of thinking? Because it is the recent Hollywood trend: Both Jodie Foster’s The Brave One, Emma Robert’s Nancy Drew, Hilary Swank’s The Reaping, and Nicole Kidman’s The Invasion fared poorly at the box office."

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Nikki Fenke from Deadline Hollywood updated her post when noted women's rights attorney Gloria Allred reacted to the announcement:

"If that's what he said, when movies with men as the lead fail, no one says we'll stop making movies with men in the lead. This is an insult to all moviegoers and particularly women. It is truly unfortunate that women get blamed for decisions which are made by men. Instead of taking responsibility for their own lack of judgment about which scripts to make, directors to hire and budgets to OK, some men in the movie industry find it easier to place blame for their lack of success on women leads and to exclude talented female actors from the top employment opportunities in Hollywood in favor of macho males. If that studio confirms that their policy is to now exclude women as leads, then my policy would be to boycott films made by Warner Bros."

Reactions were varied from the readers of /Film. Apparently the main issue of contention is that Warner Bros is first and foremost a business, and therefore they want to make a profit. In the movie-making business, the more you earn at the box office, the better your chance of making a sequel and thereby marketing the original film even further. It has been that way ever since they started making huge movies with huge budgets - just think Star Wars! Think Harry Potter! And let's not forget the recent Transformer craze!

Businessmen, whether in movies or other fields, will always look at the bottom line, and that bottom line is easy to see: it's their net profit.

When tMF conducted an interview with the editor and owner of European-films.net, the issue of why there is such a big difference between films made in the US and those produced in Europe became quite apparent. Corporate interests rule supreme in Hollywood and the major concern of these big studios is to earn huge profits. Movies in Europe, however, are produced with the support of the government, thus enabling the main issue to be artistic merit. Of course, even those government want to have their Euros back!