I’ve seen a lot of references to After Earth starring Will Smith and his son Jaden as a “vanity film”. I’ve seen the term before, and it always seems to be used as a pejorative.
My questions are:
What makes something a “vanity” film?
Are they always bad?
Are there any examples of good vanity films?
I suspect movies are only given the name “vanity films” if they’re bad. Are there any examples of films that would have been considered a vanity film if they hadn’t actually turned out to be pretty good?
And lastly, it seems a losing proposition for a celebrity to create a “vanity” film if they always seem to be universally panned, which can’t do much for one’s vanity. So why do they continue to do so?
From what I’ve read about the Coen Brothers, all of their films could be considered vanity projects–they make movies that they themselves would like to see.
I’d say you need three elements present in order to call something a vanity project of Person X.
It was bankrolled mostly with Person X’s funds rather than being produced in association with a company.
Because of this, Person X is able to resolutely maintain creative control over all aspects of the process they deem vital, with ultimate veto power over staffing, writing, casting and directing decisions.
Person X’s work is somehow conspicuously showcased in the final product. Maybe they are the lead actor in the film, maybe they wrote the script or directed.
There are certainly lots of well-regarded and/or financially successful works that were produced and directed by the same person. Some typical culprits include Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Michael Bay, Stanley Kubrick, and Roman Polanski. I would also imagine that most “independent films” and very nearly all “art films” probably fit the above definition.
Heck, there are some films that are widely admitted to be vanity projects even by people who favor them. See: nearly the entire film oeuvre of Woody Allen.
Well, they aren’t always panned, and when critics like them, they’ll call you a virtuoso, a prodigy, a maybe even a grandmaster of the art of film-making. And if you have a large and enthusiastic fanbase, your film might end up a great success even if the critics don’t much like it. On that front, I’d say Will Smith seems to have as good a shot at achieving that as anyone possibly can.
In a sense, * Battlefield Earth* was a vanity project for John Travolta.
It usually means a film an actor/director/producer does solely to spotlight their own interests. It’s always a pejorative, since the assumption would be that the movie would not have been produced if the star wasn’t involved.
It’s not a matter of being in charge of the films, like the Coen Brothers. It’s more a reaction to the film that isn’t very good and only serves to stroke the ego of the driving force.
When I think of “vanity” films, I think of the films John Derek wrote, directed, and produced starring his wife Bo Derek. And that film starring Pia Zadora that was written, directed, and produced by her husband.
The Alamo by John Wayne was largely a vanity film; he bankrolled a large chunk of it and maintained very tight control and used it as a sort of personal political manifesto in Wayne’s dialogue. The historians he hired as consultants for the movie were so aghast at the finished product (especially the way Crockett was portrayed) that they asked to have their names removed. It received mixed reviews but definitely had its fans, but it didn’t make back its money for several years and by the time it did Wayne had been forced to sell his stake to pay back his loans, reducing him from being Very Rich to just Rich.
I think you could make an argument that On Golden Pond was a vanity project. Jane Fonda wanted to make a movie with her father.
This shows that a vanity project can result in a good movie.
Trivia note: Despite the fact that Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn had both been making movies for over fifty years, they had never met before making On Golden Pond.
I think the entire Ocean’s (11, 12, 13) films were vanity films. A bunch of A-list friends decided that it would be fun to hang out for a few months together and make a movie. Since they were all A-listers, they could get away with it.
Didn’t Sonny & Cher make a vanity film ? Possibly using their child, Chastity, in the film or in the title? And wasn’t it a huge flop? Hmmm, I could be misremembering.
My Name Is Bruce is an arguable vanity film about/for/by Bruce Campbell. But that’s kind of the schtick of the movie (poking fun at his B movie career).
Dances with Wolves was seen as a Kevin Costner vanity film, and then it made a ton of money and won a bunch of awards and probably extended Costner’s career as an A-list star by several years.