Attention readers of Vogue, Vanity Fair and the like; attention subscribers to FHM and Maxim for I have an announcement. What I'm about to say may surprise you. It might anger you. It may shake you to your core but we don't pull any punches around here. Not when it comes to stuff like this. Mothers, I ask that you escort your children out of the room. Are you ready? Here it goes ...

Scarlett Johansson is not a movie star. I know the mags love her. I know the online world is positively smitten with her. I can't say I blame them because she does look pretty good on a monitor or the silver screen. But that doesn't make her a movie star. Not a bankable one. Not yet, anyway.

Don't look at me like that. The biggest movie she appeared in was SpongeBob, and that didn't even crack triple digits domestically. After that her biggest moneymaker was The Horse Whisperer back when she was twelve. The only other movie she made that broke the $50 million dollar mark was The Prestige and she was more of an after-thought in that flick. Yes, she's been in some good movies and she's been good in most of them. Just don't go telling me she's a full-fledged movie star because she couldn't open a movie if her life depended on it ... so far (The Island stunk but it should have at least opened well).

Maybe The Nanny Diaries is her ticket to substantial stardom. Maybe we shouldn't be rolling the Gretchen Mol carpet out for her just yet. And if Diaries doesn't work out, she's recently hopped onto three more productions. Let's take a quick peek.

He's Just Not That Into You
This is one of those sprawling, female-friendly ensembles like Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her, 200 Cigarettes and Evening. Remember those? Me neither and one of them came out like three weeks ago. Also, a word to the wise. If Justin Long is your biggest male lead the film better end with an Apple logo.

Mary Queen of Scots
Did anybody pay any attention to Marie Antoinette? Exactly. Somebody needs to throw Scar-Jo in rehab quick so she can get out of this contract. I don't want to hear that she might not need rehab. You can attach a "yet" to any starlet out there these days.

The Spirit
She's playing a femme fatale in this one. It's based on the popular (a 100 years ago, it was this and spinning tops) comic strip. I'm not sure why Scar-Jo is looking to copy Kirsten Dunst's career, but she should know better than to star in a movie like this. Even if you make it out alive in the end, they usually dump you in the sequels, like month-old gallons of half-used milk. It hardly seems fair. Let's stop for a moment and take a look at some previous comic book/strip movies and the actresses who appeared in them:

Penelope Ann Miller in The Shadow: I think the last time I saw her was in Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her and I didn't even see that.

Madonna in Dick Tracy: She works hard at becoming Marilyn Monroe and look where it gets her ... a one-way ticket to Swept Away. Way to take Guy Ritchie down with you, 'Donna.

Kim Basinger in Batman: It took eight years of writing her off before they gave her the Oscar. And now she's been written off again.

Nicole Kidman in Batman Forever: Thankfully, To Die For came out the same year so her agent could point at it and say, "No, really, guys ... she can act!"
Halle Berry in Catwoman: Once upon a time, Halle Berry won an Oscar. No really, it happened.

Jessica Alba in Fantastic Four: You know what they made this poor girl do after this? You got it, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Kirsten Dunst in Spider-Man: Her post non-Spidey classics? Stop me when I mention a hit. Wimbledon, Levity, Mona Lisa Smile, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Elizabethtown and Marie Antoinette.

I know I'm going to get some flack over this so let me just say I'm strictly playing the role of agent here. I'm actually looking forward to The Spirit. I dug Marie Antoinette. I loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I loved The Prestige, Match Point and Lost In Translation. And I love me some Scar-Jo. That's why I'm looking out for her. We don't have many go-to female movie stars. Let's hope The Nanny Diaries is the birth of one... otherwise that day might not ever come.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dre writes three times a week for Film.com. He just plays an agent on TV. E-mail him!

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us