Legendary comedian and film star W.C. Fields was famously quoted as having once said, “Never work with animals or children.” And just like a typical man, Fields didn’t take his own advice and worked with both children and animals. Not necessarily in that order, mind you.
The same thing has often been said whenever two or more big name stars team up on a film project that doesn’t live up to expectations. Case in point, the recent big screen comedy Larry Crowne starring Oscar winners Tom Hanks (Philadelphia and Forrest Gump) and Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich), which arrived in theaters amid mass audience indifference.
Similar to Hanks and Roberts’ first big screen collaboration (2007’s Charlie Wilson’s War), Crowne has been met with a lukewarm response from both critics and audiences alike. It probably doesn’t help that the film takes an interesting and timely premise (in the midst of a recession, a divorced, middle-aged man is fired by his longtime employer due to lack of possible advancement and decides to reinvent himself by pursuing a college degree) and undermines it by having it jockey for time with a not-terribly appealing or engaging romance between Hanks and Roberts’ characters.
Matters are not helped by the fact that the film’s uneven script was co-written by My Big Fat Greek Wedding writer-star Nia Vardalos. She doesn’t write movies so much as she writes 90-minute, laugh-track propelled sitcoms, which is fine and dandy only it doesn’t work in Larry Crowne’s favor.
This latest lackluster star collaboration got me to thinking about other established stars Hanks and Roberts have paired up with over the years and how those films faired. I avoided films in which Hanks and Roberts were paired up with an unknown or up-and-coming actor who would later become a big name in their own right (think Cameron Diaz opposite Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding or Vin Diesel and Matt Damon opposite Hanks in Saving Private Ryan).
Exhibit A: Julia Roberts
Roberts was a virtual unknown when she appeared opposite Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine and Dolly Parton (all major stars at the time) in the 1989 hit Steel Magnolias for which she garnered the first of three Oscar nominations. A year later, in 1990, her breakout film, Pretty Woman co-starring Richard Gere (also a major star at the time), was released, and presto, she herself, become a major star.
Then she made a string of films opposite other name actors that ranged from passable (The Pelican Brief with Denzel Washington, Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson, Stepmom with Susan Sarandon, and Ocean’s Eleven with George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) to mediocre (Hook with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffmann, I Love Trouble with Nick Nolte, Runaway Bride with Richard Gere, again, and The Mexican with Brad Pitt, again). It’s important to note that all of these films I Love Trouble was the only box office underachiever.
Exhibit B: Tom Hanks
Back in the early-1980s, Hanks got his big break as half of the cross-dressing duo on the hit sitcom “Bosom Buddies” (1980-1982). He’d later go on to make his film acting debut in Splash (1984) playing a man who falls in love with a mermaid (played by 80’s star Daryl Hannah) who, as a little mermaid, saved him from drowning as a little boy.
He followed that with a string of forgettable films (with the possible exception of The Money Pit and perhaps Bachelor Party), until he hit the big leagues playing a preteen who wishes he were “big” at a carnival one night and wakes up the next morning as a 30-year-old in 1988’s aptly-titled Big. The performance landed him the first of five Oscar nominations in the lead actor category.
And like Roberts, he also parlayed his newfound stardom into big screen collaborations with other big names that ranged in quality: Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith (The Bonfire of the Vanities – just dreadful), Geena Davis and Madonna (A League of Their Own – great film), Meg Ryan (Sleepless in Seattle – classic chick flick), Denzel Washington (Philadelphia – revelatory and underappreciated), Paul Newman (Road To Perdition – damn good), Leonardo DiCaprio (Catch Me If You Can – deservedly gaining cult status).
Only Bonfire of the Vanities tanked; the other films were box office hits.
Assuming Hanks and Roberts get another opportunity to collaborate again: Will the third time be the charm?
In the meantime, Roberts is playing it “safe” on her next film. She’s been cast as the Evil Queen in a new update of “Snow White” with the working title The Brothers Grimm: Snow White with up-and-coming actors Lily Collins (The Blind Side) playing Snow White, and Armie Hammer (The Social Network) playing the prince. There’s only one established star on that set, and it’s Roberts.
Hanks, on the other hand, is at it again. He’s wrapped production on the big screen adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” opposite fellow star and Oscar winner Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side). And this fall, he’ll team up with two more Oscar-winning stars – Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking) and Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball) – on Cloud Atlas, an adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name by author David Mitchell.
