Amazon.com’s Unbox (video on demand) service has the above movie, in the browse screen, before you click on it, listed as such:
Interview with the Vampire (Rental - 2009) Starring Brad Pitt and Christian Slater
Watch It Now: $2.99 to rent
4.4 out of 5 stars (407)
Now, I recall Brad Pitt being in the movie. Upon seeing his name I now recall Christian Slater being in the movie. But by golly if I don’t seem to recall someone more famous than Christian Slater or (at the time of the movie for sure) Brad Pitt. Must be Kristen Dunst I’m thinking of.
For real though, which is the most likely reason for Tom Cruise not getting top billing?
They automatically added a gazillion (approx.) movies and didn’t have the time or energy to verify that everything was perfect.
Tom Cruise is such a cancer in Amazon’s minds that they gave the star of the movie third class billing.
Something I haven’t considered. I find this to be the most unlikely
At any rate, that really jumped out at me and figured if nothing else I’d share it here.
I gather that there is some serpentine and ephemeral system in Hollywood among studios and actors unions that prescribes how actors in movies are credited. This system was probably designed back when movie posters and opening credits were the most important things to actors and went a long way to establishing the pecking order. For this reason you often see huge stars listed last with a “featuring” or “special appearance by” or “introducing” in front of their name, one assumes that this is of special importance to actors and their agents.
The problem is that none of this takes into account modern cataloging and searching done on websites. A website doesn’t know anything about an actor, just the order that they are entered into the system. The production company probably has a “credits” file that lists the actors in the order in which they were credited when the film was originally made and if Cruise was given a special credit at the end of the title sequence he’d be listed last on that file.
It could be simple carelessness and I can’t recall how Cruise was credited in the movie, but that would be my prediction.
Except doesn’t the movie open with Slate beginning his interview with Cruise? It’s been a while since I saw it, but since the story with Pitt is told through Cruise talking to Slater, I don’t see how Pitt could have appeared onscreen first.
Looking at a bootlegged version of the film on YouTube, the cast list at the end is indeed as glee listed: Pitt and Slater at the top, Cruise fifth. The opening credits list Cruise first, followed by Pitt- Slater gets an “and.”
