Yeh I was thinking about Ewan as a bankable movie star the other day in light of Dr Sleep and this (ok he's not the star but he's the big villain ) I mean Dr Sleep should've done alot better but for whatever reason no one was interested in a sequel to The Shining (too old? the strange title?) and Ewan did absolutely nothing to bring in an audience..and its the same with him in BoP (although he's not front/centre at all..in fact he's like a nonentity in all the marketing etc)
one of the few other times he fronted a high profile movie was The Island in 2005 (same summer as Episode III) pre TF Michael Bay's mega budget scifi action rip off of Logan Run meets The Matrix costarring a young Scarjo ...complete BOMB. with Will Smith or Cruise etc it probably would've been a big or at least decent size hit like I Am Legend or Edge of Tomorrow..but with Ewan audiences were just 'no thanks'
with Star Wars its the series and characters that is the 'star' like superhero movies so the actors like Ewan and Hayden had very little bearing (maybe Liam Neeson did abit in Ep 1..and obviously Harrison Ford was a major factor in TFA, plus the original actors back as their iconic characters in the sequels) although Ewan has always been abit of a fan fav as Obi wan - then again that's probably more to do with the fact he was playing young Alec Guinness (like the way Chris Pine played Shatner in the reboot Star Trek or Brandon Routh played Christopher Reeve in Superman Returns - basically younger stand in's due the original iconic actor being too old/dead)
with Moulin Rogue it was the Nicole who was the star, plus the films spectacle was the draw .. practically any actor of similar age that could hold a tune could've been in Ewans place (probably would've been better had it been a proper singer)
Trainspotting was his breakout and ok its an iconic (British) movie but he was really part of an ensemble and its more like a cult movie that had very little impact anywhere else - as we saw with 'TS2' (I refuse to call it T2 lol) the box office was non existent (post TS1 ewan apparently he had a big feud with the director Danny Boyle as he was either told or assumed hed star in Boyles next film The Beach but when a post Titanic Leo expressed interest Boyle went with him and who could blame him? even with Leo it didn't do that well but obviously probably triple what it woudve done with Ewan.. but Ewan was apparently furious and dint speak to Boyle for decades ..until TS2 lol)
Ok that's enough Ewan bashing from me for now (he can use all his $$$ to get over it lol)
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