I'm trying to see something. I was discussing with someone how hard it is for an independent film with no stars to break out and was trying to find a good example of a film that did and I had to go back. Waaau back.

But some examples I had was Swingers and a bunch of independent horror movies like Blair witch and Bloomhouse movies.

Am I missing any obvious more recent films?


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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

But Rocky is probably the king of this category


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

>But Rocky is probably the king of this category

Talia Shire had appeared in the Godfather saga, Burgess Meredith was The Penguin on Batman among dozens of other credits, and Burt Young had at least been in prominent films like Chinatown and Across 110th Street.

That movie pulled in something like 200 times its budget, created one of the most enduring franchises in Hollywood (that can't reliably be reduced to straight-to-video schlock) and is carried by two people you'd have had to have been a total geek/big city exploitation cinema fan to recognize.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

and ROI

Rocky is TKO despite Stallone and Weathers. still an awesome success story.

I acknowledge that Talia Shire, Burgess Meredith and Burt Young were all established actors in Rocky, but I would argue that none of them were household names with anything approaching box office draws.

Rocky has got to be part of this conversation because now I am wondering what films with the lowest actor name recognition has ever been more successful than Rocky with Box Office and Critical Acclaim (11 Oscar NOminations and best picture win!). Anything else come to mind?

That being said Howsiya's point is well taken and that's a slightly different question and conversation.

I said Indepedent film in my original post because I assumed that no studio film meets the criteria and Rocky is the best example of coming closest to being no name and the story about how hard it was to get made proves that its an exception to the rule about studio films and star power.




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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

they are aimed at the lowest common denominator, and some have stood the test of time because despite casting young nobodies, they might have had some funny lines and scenarios. i think a lot of them saw long runs on cable.

i'll have to think on whether there is a smash studio film that matches the critical acclaim of rocky with an even lesser-known cast. i think it's hard because we're all so much more film literate than we were either when those were out or if we were the alive and our same age then, so our perspective of who was established is academic, and history is skewed, including by second and third lives on cable, home video, and now probably web write-ups, social media, and podcasts.

At least with regards to my point about Talia Shire, Burgess Meredith and Burt Young. We know there names now but I am wondering if audiences when Rocky came out knew their names?

Let me know what you come up with something that touches Rocky success.

A success that kinda maybe sorta is in the same ballpark is Get Out. Now Catherine Neener and Bradley Whitford were known faces (and probably names) but not lead actors or box offices draws but the success of Get Out rivals that of a big studio flic featuring Will Smith.




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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

>At least with regards to my point about Talia Shire, Burgess
>Meredith and Burt Young. We know there names now but I am
>wondering if audiences when Rocky came out knew their names?

well, that was my point, at least with burgess meredith. batman was a hit show, and he was one of the main villains, so that is massive pop cultural familiarity already. as i said, he has dozens of credits preceding rocky, including starring in the classic version of of mice and men. i listened to the audio commentary recently of burnt offerings, and they refered to his storied career before he became part of the hollywood blacklist.

with talia, that's where it gets into subjectivity. i wasn't alive then, but it's hard to imagine the main cast of the godfather I & II not getting individual attention. there were so many breakout roles. it wasn't an obscure part, and people are quick to name those movies alongside her name.

with burt young, again, it's a guess, but those were big movies in addition to other ones he was in, so i cannot qualify him as a "no name." stallone had less of a CV. young had bigger parts over more years in bigger movies by then. maybe his name wasn't a draw, but he was known.


>Let me know what you come up with something that touches Rocky
>success.

i am going to try to take a look at this later. a lot of the horror movies are considered classics now, but they weren't best picture caliber then or now. i actually thought of city of god earlier but have no idea how well-known the cast were domestically. a lot of foreign movies i find great i had little to no exposure to the cast. most i can eliminate from consideration because they still don't have the recognition of rocky.


>A success that kinda maybe sorta is in the same ballpark is
>Get Out. Now Catherine Neener and Bradley Whitford were known
>faces (and probably names) but not lead actors or box offices
>draws but the success of Get Out rivals that of a big studio
>flic featuring Will Smith.

again, when you start with names like catherine keener, you're already not dealing with a "no-name" cast. not that she is a mainstream box office draw, but she is an established favorite especially among indie film fans. put her in anything and the film is elevated. i already knew the cast of get out before i saw it, but admittedly i watch a lot of movies and tv.

That thing was filmed with about $5 and a stick of gum and made a killing at the box office.

like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and The Hangover are the first to come to mind after the horror joints already mentioned. certainly none of the actors in those films were known to me at the time of their release.

(I didn't really watch The Office, so I'm not sure if that one guy already had some celebrity status by then. but that was Cooper and Zach G.'s breakout roles, right?)

Helms took the baton from Colbert/Carrell on Daily Show before The Office, Zach G was a major re-run on Comedy Central with his specials and Cooper had the Wet Hot/Wedding Crashers stuff built in, so even though they weren't "movie stars" yet it wasn't a movie you saw a trailer for and wondered who those people were if you were a comedy fan in the 2000s.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

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Keep the crack raps up that shit is double plus what-ever-the-fuck.
Everybody's afraid to say that it just sucks to watch talented motherfuckers pretending they sell drugs - EL-P

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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Renée Zellweger's second film.

Ben Affleck's first big film role.

Adam Goldberg's second film.

Matthew McConaughey's first BIG film.

Rory Cochrane's 3rd movie.

Parker Posey - She was in Coneheads before this.. probably not a star at this point.

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Gone: My Discogs collection for The Roots:
http://www.discogs.com/user/tomhayes-roots/collection

Assuming we’re ignoring James Earl Jones’ voiceover presence, and that Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing weren’t box office draws to American audiences, I can’t imagine any other actors (at the time of the film’s release) being “big name” actors. And the success of the film cannot be denied.

So, perhaps, this counts?

In my original post I was thinking about carving out MCU movies because I think Thor and Captain America are huge movies that starred not huge stars but the franchise/brand is so huge and the build up was so huge that frankly it didn't really matter who starred in them.


I wasn't there but I have read about the lines for star wars when it opened which is a little surprising to me because I am not sure how they built an audience before it debuted but I feel like Star Wars is similar. Action movies where the project/franchise/brand is so big, that the talent doesn't matter.


Some action/sci-fi movies Big Concepts are so attention grabbing that they are kinda work like horror movies we discussed where talent doesn't matter so much and you can have no names and still be huge.




**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

>In my original post I was thinking about carving out MCU
>movies because I think Thor and Captain America are huge
>movies that starred not huge stars but the franchise/brand is
>so huge and the build up was so huge that frankly it didn't
>really matter who starred in them.

I remember reading an article in the run up to Sam Raimi's Spider-Man about how it would herald a sea change in the way big studios cast event movies for this very reason. "Tobey who? Who cares, it's Spider-Man!"

20M+ and a profit share for movies that ended up being flops.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com

Or did Arnold Schwarzenegger appear in Conan before that movie?

<--- Me when my head hits the pillow

being a famous bodybuilder was how he was able to venture into movies. definitely a name. he'd been steadily building up his hollywood star power.

...I was aware of Arnold at the time. But I wasn't sure how well known he was outside of my own head. LOL

My brother was big into bodybuilding so he had photos of Arnold around. But I didn't realize he had significant fame to the mainstream from his Mr. Olympia(?) days.

<--- Me when my head hits the pillow

Literally no name actors. Not actors in tv shows or actors you've seen here and there. Insane how much money it ended up making.

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"The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in." - James Baldwin