But is that whitewashing or prettyfication? The second is done to everybody for whom a biopic has ever been made, except maybe for the main character in Monster.
In American culture/racial politics, the concepts overlap. “Prettified” black tends to be associated with lighter skin, “good hair”, etc.
I read the book, I saw the silent version( with naked guys and topless girls throwing flowers!) and of course I saw the 1959 version.
So I have been kind of excited to see the new version. Now I may not. I’d hoped they would go back to the book and pick up on plot points there, but it doesn’t sound like it. Morgan Freeman as Ilderim sounded good, but the trailer I saw hardly has his face or voice, so it’s hard to tell.
The funny thing is, Heston in his autobiography said there were guys who worked on the 1959 film who had worked on the silent version, and they wondered “Who will work on the next remake?”
So you’re saying “Ali” would have done better without Will Smith? Or “The King’s Speech” without Firth, Rush and Bonham-Carter? Or Moneyball with some no-name guy instead of Brad Pitt? Rush without Chris Hemsworth or Daniel Bruhl? Wolf of Wall Street? American Hustle? American Sniper? Foxcatcher? The Iron Lady?
They’re all biographical pics to a large degree, movies that were well received, and movies where the presence of the stars clearly took them to some other level (IMO) versus where they’d have been otherwise.
That’s the point- they could have cast some no-name guy to play Billy Beane, but I’d just about guarantee you that only hardcore baseball wonks would have gone to see it. Put Brad Pitt in, and suddenly the movie is interesting to a whole lot more people, and goes from maybe being an arthouse movie to being something in wide release.
Same thing for Simone/Saldana, or at least that’s what they were hoping for. Without a star, it would have been relegated to art film status at best, but with Saldana, they had hope for a wider release. Unfortunately, the movie seems to have been a steaming turd in pretty much every respect, so that didnt’ happen.
Here’s an interesting one for everyone. Just how would you cast a ca. 2005 Michael Jackson? Nothing’s going to be right, due to his personal oddities.
That they had to darken Saldana’s skin and put a fake nose on her suggests it’s not about “prettyfication”. It’s about casting a woman as Nina Simone even though she is unable to convincingly pass as her…even with heaps of costume makeup.
With racial politics being what they are in Hollywood, it is doubtful that Nina Simone would be cast to play Nina Simone in her own movie. Because she wouldn’t have the “right” look to even be in the running.
Wow, what an amazing insight!
Do you think that is a useful answer to the question, or do you just like being “clever”?
The definition of “bombed” is that no one went to see it. The question here, is, WHY did no one want to see it?
I’d cast Pee Wee Herman.
Wait, am I doing it right?
Which is why Straight Out of Compton was so popular, right? Oh wait…none of the leads were big names. Like at all. You had Giamatti and some minor cameos, sure, but the guys playing NWA were newcomers. And get this, they looked like the people they were portraying. No face paint and prosthetics needed at all to convince us that Dre was really Dre.
The truth is, a movie about Nina Simone was never going to be a mega blockbuster, with or without star power in the cast. The people most likely to make the effort to see this movie are Nina Simone fans, and this is a group unlikely to be impressed simply because a big name is playing the lead; they would have been fine with a good actress that looked enough like her naturally, without distracting costume effects that reinforce the idea that talented and appealing broad-nosed and dark skinned actresses are impossible to find in this world. Those that are not Simone fans wouldn’t be particularly drawn to her story in the first place, but that would be the group most in need of a big name to lure them in. So we can see, in their casting choice, that the studio valued the interests of the latter group more than the former, and yeah, I’m happy to see this decision has probably cost them tickets from the people they should’ve been courting in the first place… Perhaps it will eventually dawn on them that there is more nuance to people’s movie preferences than just name recognizability.
To be fair, one of the 4 (the guy playing Ice Cube) is Ice Cube’s real-life son.
The point is to get reasonably close, not to cast a virtual doppleganger for a historical personage. And with the movie industry and movie audiences what they are, they’ll be fine with someone like Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, even though he doesn’t really look that much like him.
About the movie “Nina”… are there really enough Nina Simone fans to warrant a studio catering to their wants in a biographical picture? Somehow I suspect not- only senior citizens and music nerds are even going to know who she is, and neither of those demographics are big movie target demographics.
So the smart studio is going to try and market it to the larger world, in hopes that maybe they can make money that way.
The perplexing question for me isn’t in the casting choices or the marketing choices, it’s more a question of what bonehead thought that a biopic about Nina Simone might even be popular? She was basically a volatile lunatic who passed away 13 years ago, hit her peak popularity some 55 years ago, and lived in a foreign country for the last 30 years of her life. Not exactly a recipe for being someone people under the age of say… 70 would even really know about, unless they’re music nerds.
Yup, but that was hardly a necessity. The movie still would’ve done well if another actor was cast who was skilled enough to pull off an Ice Cube rendition, and that person could’ve been an obscure nobody. Just as the actors who played Dre and the rest.
I don’t even know where to start with this, seriously.
Who thinks that it will be? Who thinks that it is intended to be?
And, of course, the definitive quote on this:
Regarding “Jaws: The Revenge,” [Caine] once wrote, “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”
And the hits just keep on coming …
Ben Hur (you know, the movie this thread is about), dropped 68% on Friday. That’s the sort of drop a generic one-and-done horror film gets. It’s in 10th place, but may end up out of the top ten for the whole weekend.
Looking at Wikipedia’s list of box office bombs and clicking to sort on production budget, this movie will end up in 2nd place to Pluto Nash for movies with $100+M budgets. Such distinguished company.
Interesting how many of those are remakes/reboots of classic films and TV shows. You’d think they’d learn… 
We’ve been on a family vacation and went to see it Saturday night with another couple. We all found it entertaining, no regrets. I thought the chariot scene was pretty good, except for one part where some horses were running up the stands, something about that was off. But overall we enjoyed seeing it. I saw the '59 version as a kid, but have little memory of it. I’d like to watch it again soon to compare.
Has anybody seen all three versions, silent, 1959, 2016?
Wait, they spent $100 mill on The Adventures of Pluto Nash???
Damn they are on some good chemicals out in Hollywood.
How do you figure? I mean, yeah, it’s already outgrossed PLUTO NASH – but it’s also already outgrossed other $100+M budget movies on that list, like THE ALAMO and MARS NEEDS MOMS; and I’d be willing to bet it soon passes HOW DO YOU KNOW.
It’s hard to remake a movie when it was already a classic !
I’d agree with this. The recent remake of The Women was, compared to the original, utter crap. And that is because, at least in part, NOBODY today writes dialogue like that, and the dialogue in the original The Women was both brilliant and necessary for its success and survival as a classic.
Can someone who has seen the new Ben-Hur tell me in a spoiler box, or by PM, if Messala survives the race? In the book…
he lived as a cripple for several years, then was murdered by his girlfriend, who happened to be the daughter of Balthasar
That would be an interesting diversion from the 1959 version.
Heston said when first approached by the filmmakers he was offered the role of Messala. I try to see him as the bad guy and boy, would that have been interesting. When it was settled that he would play Judah he got a copy of what script existed so far to let his friend Chuck Connors see it. Connors as Messala would have been cook, maybe a leaner, meaner Messala.