In an alternate reality, Gerard Butler won an Academy Award for “Gladiator” before a long career playing thin, then fat, then somewhere in between for a series of roles either commercially viable or endlessly interesting. This reality blows, since Russell Crowe is pretty much doing that here with us. As much as we’ve been hating on some of his recent works, Crowe is still one of our pre-eminent leading men, and his association with a film is still a hint of prestige, while Butler is more of a poor (destitute?) man’s version of our favorite phone-throwing Aussie.
If the interest is mutual on Butler’s part to sample the male lead in “A Star Is Born” that Crowe has since abandoned, it speaks volumes towards what future talent it may attract. Originally, Maximus was to play opposite Beyonce Knowles (which we, frankly, could not envision), but with both major players out, Butler might be the first to get involved in this modern re-working. To us, Butler seems like a limited weapon that can be used in small doses, perhaps in action pictures – his romantic comedies are severely undercut by the significantly violent physical presence, as well as the latent anger buried underneath what has sadly become a little bit of a doughy frame. He has sang before, of course, but do YOU remember anything about Joel Schumacher’s “The Phantom Of The Opera”?
Unless, of course, the producers are weighing the pros and cons of hiring Crowe vs. the cheaper, younger Butler. For all the acidic notices Crowe’s drawn for somehow no longer being a box office draw, his films still pull in massive audiences, and “Robin Hood” is on pace to outdo “300” worldwide. However, Crowe’s films have a reputation for being break-evens or flops because of exorbitant costs, and Butler may be the more attractive option given that, with his track record, his films usually have high profit margins. Of course, his films are usually on the cheap side (in more ways that one), so making a Butler film is a more certain bet for a profit. To some backwards-thinking executive in Hollywood, this fallacy is probably their own deeply retarded gospel.
