Oh, geez…I’m so sorry! I was searching for discussions of “YNELITTA” and forgot to check if the thread was a zombie before I posted to it.
The “Introducing…” credit seems like a bit of a dinosaur to me. What’s the latest film it’s been used in, I wonder?
Jonathan Harris in every episode of “Lost in Space” set this cretinous credit-listing practice.
ISTR that he had a contract somewhere else that said he could appear on a TV show only as a special guest star. I could be wrong.
Michael Keaton got one in Beetlejuice – I assumed that was because he played the title character but only got about 17 minutes of actual screen time.
My impression is it’s usually an established actor with name recognition in a non-starring role.
It’s been weeks and weeks since I saw it, but didn’t Gabourey Sidibe get an “And Introducing” credit for Precious? Maybe someone who’s seen it recently can chime in.
Still, they all had it better than Richard Grieco on 21 Jump Street who was never even credited in the opening. They wound up having to write a new show for him, since they couldn’t put him on the front list.
I saw Frozen last night (I thought it was really good btw) and because of this thread I noted that the female skier was listed as “Introducing Emma Bell.” What’s funny is, looking at her IMDB page after I got home to see what she was doing next because I really liked her, she’d been in 5 movies prior to Frozen! So now I’m scratching my head over that credit.
It’s all about money.
The impressions people get are just rationalizations that somewhat resemble the forces that affect it, but the reality has already been stated - it’s all about clout and what kind of deal you/your agent can get.
If you’re an well-known star but not billed above the title, then it’s a form of compensation to make your name listing special. “Let’s see, I could pay you another million dollars, or I can add ‘and’ to your credit listing and bill you last? Let me think on that one…”
I remember when Disney’s Atlantis came out had Claudia Christian in it as Helga Sinclair, not the girl from Atlantis. So then I find out she’s billing herself as “the female lead from Atlantis”. That seemed odd to me, but what it really meant was she was the top-paid actress in the movie. Had nothing to do with the role and everything to do with the compensation.
Same goes with the “and” or “with ___ as ____” roles.