Its like What Happened Between "Batman" (1989) and "The Two Jakes" (1990)

I was probably the only person that saw “The Two Jakes” at the movie theater.

---

I did, too. I see a lot of movies so when I often write about flops "nobody went to see it," I am being "symbolic." I went to see it.




Nicholson rather managed to disappoint in THREE ways with The Two Jakes

Not as big a hit as Batman
Not a classic like Chinatown
Nicholson not as good a director as Polanski.

Still, on its own terms, I liked The Big Jakes....Nicholson (though much more portly than in Chinatown) was good, Harvey Keitel was good, it was good to see the Hispanic cop from the original back -- older , and his character having lost an arm in WWII. The idea that WWII happened between Chinatown and The Two Jakes really impacted the characters.

And I thought the one scene was funny/sexy where portly ol' Jack was STILL invited to have sex with a crazed woman right there on his office floor -- and took the offer after taking a sip of water from his water cooler paper cup to "prep for the bout."

Also in each of these cases, the previous movies did not have the word 'The' in the title, but the next year's movie did.

So maybe when an actor is in a big hit movie, their next film should not have the word 'The' in the title.

---

Exactly!

And I can refine that:

One word titles:

Batman
Oppenheimer
Barbie

vs

Three word titles:

The Two Jakes
The Fall Guy

indeed, do not the three-word titles share the word "The" AND grammatical structure? The ...Fall...Guy....The ...Two ...Jakes.

What is that grammar police? A predicate followed by an adjective followed by a noun? (I just made that up.)

Back to one-word titles

The famous old director Alfred Hitchcock TRIED to use one word titles all the time:

Rebecca
Suspicion
Spellbound
Notorious
Rope
Vertigo
Psycho
Topaz
Frenzy

...worked for him!

I suppose, but Emily Blunt was Oscar nominated for her role(Supporting Actress.)

And..at the Oscars they had Gosling and Blunt present together kind of setting up the "Barbenheimer couple" to promote The Fall Guy....

I didn’t even know who Emily Blunt was until about seven days ago when I was taking a colossal dump and suddenly realized that I was an alcoholic, just like that chick in the atom bomb fuck fest from last summer. I looked her up because I wanted to see if she’d attend an AA meeting and then possibly sex me, but it turns out she’s just an actress, and the whole alcoholic thing was just part of her movie role. Long story short, her name was (and presumably still is) Emily Blunt.

I can see the logic behind this. These big budget movies do take time to put together, though. I think it might be more that they were expecting big things from those upcoming movies and made their decision based on that.

--

"Planning ahead" in the movie business based on several upcoming movies is a practice I have read about.

I offer this example even if it may not be readily apparent at first.

The script for "Taxi Driver" was kicking around Hollywood for awhile. It was initially set up with the intention of JEFF BRIDGES playing the taxi driver(!), with, evidently, less lurid and horrific a story. But down the road apiece, Martin Scorsese got the script and he wanted Robert DeNiro -- then very young and "untried" beyond Scorsese's own "Mean Streets" and a movie called "Bang the Drum Slowly."

DeNiro had gotten his "Young Vito role" in Godfather II and Scorsese and his producers hatched a plan: keep Columbia interested in making "Taxi Driver" but WAIT until Godfather II(expected to be a huge hit) came out and Robert DeNiro "would get famous." It worked with a big surprise: not only did DeNiro get famous, but he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for GII.

So NOW Taxi Driver had a new bankable star in DeNiro.

Something of the same thing here? Fore-knowledge that Barbie and Oppenheimer would up the stardom of Gosling and Blunt?